25 pages • 50 minutes read
Tayeb SalihA Handful of Dates
Fiction | Short Story | YA | Published in 1964A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Giants
In the beginning of the story, the narrator describes daydreaming in one of his favorite places at a nearby river in a wood of acacia trees. It is here that he imagines a world where giants live in a tribe. The narrator describes them as “a people tall and thin with white beards and sharp noses, like [his] grandfather” (90). Tayeb Salih uses the narrator’s boyhood imaginings of giants, made in the likeness of his grandfather, as a means to introduce the theme of childhood illusion and fantasy, and to associate the grandfather implicitly with childhood flights of fancy. He imagines the giant tribe living just around the corner of the river bend where he cannot see, symbolizing the inevitable disillusionment he experiences as he comes to understand the injustice of dominating over the weak as his grandfather exploits Masood. This idea of manhood being defined by power and dominance directly conflicts with the more collective and generous version of manhood the narrator values in Masood, who exhibits, joy, laughter, and a connection to the land. Giants are associated with power, destruction, and danger, gesturing toward the boy’s subconscious understanding of his grandfather’s true, hidden nature. When the narrator learns the true identity of the “giants” in the story—his grandfather and the other men who exploit Masood—the narrator loses his childhood illusion—literally the fantasies of his childhood play.
Palm Trees and Dates
Salih uses the symbol of palm trees and their fruit—dates—to emphasize the injustice of exploiting those less powerful. Palm trees occur in nature but have been cultivated because of their nourishing, sweet fruit. In the story, Masood has inherited land that has been intentionally cultivated for such harvest, leaving him rich in land and fruit. Masood demonstrates his reverence for the land as he tells the narrator that “[p]alm trees, my boy, like humans, experience joy and suffering” (93). Comparing the trees to humans with feeling emphasizes his connection with the trees, signifying they are more than a part of the land to be exploited. The narrator even reflects on the harvested dates, describing them as “descending from the heavens” (93).
By the end of the text, however, the land and harvest are exploited. Salih uses the palm trees and dates to symbolize the clash of values apparent in their “riches.” To men like the grandfather and Hussein, the trees and harvest’s riches lie in how much of it they can acquire and how much money it will earn them. They remove the dates and transport them away. However, for Masood, the trees and dates provide richness through the life and sustenance they can provide his family and community. Salih uses the symbol of the palm trees and their dates to juxtapose the different ideologies of what it means to be rich and what responsibilities wealth confers in a rural, communal society.
Acacia Trees
Acacia trees are representative of the narrator’s childhood illusions in the story. His place of play is a “thick wood of acacia trees” (90) and this is where he indulges in his childhood fantasy of the whitehaired giants akin to his grandfather, and a place of safety he runs to when his illusions are shattered.
The boy describes his perception of his grandfather in relation to the acacias: “I was put in mind of the way the river wound round the wood of acacia trees. I loved him and would imagine myself, when I grew up to be a man, tall and slender like him” (91). The image of the tree, linked to the height, uprightness, and age of the grandfather, further associates the two in this passage. In this way, the acacia becomes part of the relationship between the boy’s view of his grandfather and the boy’s way of interacting with the world, which the story reveals to be much more closely intertwined than the boy had understood.
The image of the acacia trees has a role in Islamic culture. Tradition says that it was an acacia tree that the followers of Islam sheltered under in the Quran after God rewarded them by creating the tree. It is also the tree under which allegiance to God was sworn. It represents integrity, mutual trust, and generosity. The acacias serve no plot purpose in the story but are mentioned several times as a motif, suggesting that their presence is intended to connote these values, as an implicit judgment on the behavior of the grandfather.
