Shame

“The dumb-waiter contained, then, many terrible secrets.”

The dumbwaiter is installed by the three sisters to limit their contact with the outside world and preserve the anonymity of the sister who has become pregnant with Omar. It also hides secrets of its own (such as the stiletto blades). The contraption is designed to perpetuate an air of silence, and, in this sense, it is aptly named. It is a device fitted with unspeakable weaponry to stop a secret being spoken.

“Mr. Shakil’s air of great learning had been a sham, just like his supposed business acumen.”

In the novel, a patchwork reality is assembled from various fictions. Many people believed Mr. Shakil to be a great reader and a wise man, but his library was a sham, a pretense that he purchased from another man to bolster his own reputation. The library therefore functions as a metaphor for these interwoven fictions, in which people’s perception of Mr. Shakil is built from a series of carefully cultivated lies.

“What’s the opposite of shame? What’s left when sharam is subtracted? That’s obvious: shamelessness.”

The opposite of shame conveys similar negative implications. To be shameless is a shameful thing in the novel, meaning that there is no literal way in which to escape shame. Those who are shameless are considered to be shameful by others, and this dynamic creates a constant feedback loop of shame that comes to dominate the minds of the characters.