“Men in the Sun” brings before us the failed journey of four
Palestinian men—each of different age groups, from the youth Marwan to bachelor
Assad to wizened father Abu Quais to our literal ‘failed man’ in the castrated
Abul Khaizuran. In this manner what we are given is like a personified encompassing
of the hapless, average Palestinian man through his life-cycle. What initially sounds like a struggle for hope and a better life instead, by the end, highlights how each
element involved was in fact pointing towards the almost palpable doom and failure
that concludes this story.
From the land, barren of shade and water, to the sky with
its interrogative glare of the sun breaching the line between memory and
reality, nature essentially holds no promise for these men. Nor so does
religion—there's an absence of an Almighty power, only recalled carelessly, as
when speaking of “God’s Hell,” and ironically (“God was certainly good to you
when he made you die”). Of family there is no support either, as was discussed
in class. Kuwait itself is too distant and aloof a promise to be a solid hope. What existed as positive lay within the doomed men—within Abu Quais, his
cherished memories soaked within the land; within Assad and his strength, his refusal
to let one cheat the less clever; within Marwan and his desire to provide for his
family. Beyond these endearing qualities was their sense of purpose—Abu Quais
and Marwan journey to attain provisions for their families, and Assad seeks out
freedom from an undesired marriage. With the death of these three characters,
we are left with nothing.
For the character of Abul Khaizuran is nothing short of a
failure. He represents a literal idea of a failed man and the impossibility of
regeneration with his castration; he has no profound purpose behind reaching
Kuwait—the land holds no promise for him. His desire for a retired peaceful
life is to be achieved through money alone, “money comes first, and then
morals,” and any previous semblance of morality is shed when he takes the money
from these dead characters’ very pockets. His one task, wherein we came to
appreciate the man for trying to safely transport the other three to Kuwait,
in itself comes to a tragic halt when he fails to meet the six minute mark; he also
fails his friends when he doesn’t bury them, but instead discards their bodies on
rubbish and departs. All these do not imply that I feel he is worth hating—but for
me, he is equivalent to Mr. Pink in Reservoir
Dogs, who lives in the grey area, bent on survival, where morality
and friendship come second. He represents the Palestinian at his lowest—bereft of
manhood and morality, of any chance at redemption from this grey area, regardless
of any good intentions.
And so, with only such a failed representative of the
Palestinian left standing at the end, one indeed wonders if throughout, all the author has ominously implied is that, in the Palestinian's struggle, one may indeed abandon
all hope.
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