The Shadow Lines

For much of the novel, there are hints that an undefined “trouble” is coming. The riot that leads to Tridib’s death is caused by men who are outraged that a single hair of the Prophet Mohammad disappeared from a shrine. The author uses the hair to demonstrate that large-scale catastrophes can result from the smallest objects or grievances. Whether the hair belonged to Mohammad or not is irrelevant. People behaved as if it did, resulting in tremendous loss of life.

Tridib’s atlas gives the clearest example of the Narrator coming to terms with the nature of manmade boundaries. An atlas is made of maps, and maps are, by definition, the representation of how mankind has divided the world according to its own rules. When the Narrator uses the compass to draw circles on the map, he sees that nationalized cartography removes people from the equation, reducing everything to states and lines. It is implied that Tridib’s eclectic interests were natural for a man who owned and studied an atlas. He wanted to better understand the world, both its geography and its people.