Shame

Sufiya Zinobia Hyder is the central character of Shame, even if she only operates on the periphery of the narrative. While she physically grows into an adult, she possesses the mental age of a six-year-old and only matures to the level of a nine-year-old by the conclusion of the novel. This intellectual disability is the result of a brain fever that she experienced as a young girl. As such, she never grows fully into adulthood, and she is never given the agency or responsibility needed to impact the plot in the style of a conventional protagonist. Instead, her parents subject her to criticism and shaming, for they detest her and favor her sister, Good News. Sufiya therefore becomes the physical repository for the anger and bitterness that her family feels toward the world. They tell her to feel ashamed, to the point where she accepts and internalizes this idea in the most extreme way possible. Sufiya comes to feel shame on behalf of every person around her. She glows hot with shame, so much so that her warm skin can burn other people when she feels particularly ashamed: an attribute that stands as an example of the magical