Summary
Narrated from a first-person, past-tense perspective, “A Handful of Dates” opens with the story’s unnamed narrator recounting that he can’t remember how old he was at the time the story takes place, but that he must have been young: people would pat his head and pinch his cheek when they saw him out with his grandfather.
As a child, the narrator spends more time with his grandfather than his father. His grandfather takes him everywhere he goes, except when the narrator goes to the mosque to learn the Koran. Unlike most children, the narrator loves learning the Koran, which he is quick to learn by heart. The Sheikh shows the narrator’s recitation skills off to visitors to the mosque; the visitors pat the narrator approvingly on the head, just as people on the street do while the narrator is out with his grandfather.
The narrator also loves swimming in the river, where he goes in the morning after mosque. After eating a quick breakfast at home, the narrator rushes to the river. After tiring himself out swimming, he lies on the bank and looks at the river winding behind the forest of acacia trees.
The narrator comments on how he often imagines a tribe of giants living behind the trees: tall and thin people with pure white beards and sharp noses like his grandfather has. His grandfather's beard is soft and luxuriant, white as cotton wool. He is also so tall he must bend to enter houses.
The narrator comments that he loves his grandfather and imagines being tall and slender himself one day, when he too will walk with great strides. The narrator believes he is his grandfather’s favorite grandchild because people see him as intelligent while his cousins are a stupid bunch. The narrator knows when his grandfather would like him to laugh and when he should be silent.
The narrator also keeps track of his grandfather’s prayer times: without being asked, the narrator brings his grandfather his prayer rug and makes sure the ewer jug is full of water so the grandfather can perform ceremonially washing before prayer.
When he has nothing else to do, the grandfather enjoys listening to the narrator recite the Koran from memory. The narrator can tell from the grandfather’s face that he is moved by the narrator’s lilting voice.
Analysis
Tayeb Salih’s “A Handful of Dates” is divided by space breaks into three sections. The first third establishes the innocent young narrator’s carefree lifestyle and adoration of his grandfather. Establishing the narrator’s innocence is necessary for later developments in the story, as Salih will use the section as a foundation against which the narrator’s burgeoning identity can be contrasted.
Living in an unnamed Sudanese village on the edge of a desert near the Nile river, the narrator enjoys spending mornings at mosque, where he learns to recite passages from the Koran, the sacred book of Islam. The narrator understands himself to be an intelligent student, as he is quick to memorize the Koran and is commended by the sheikh who oversees his studies.
The narrator also differentiates himself from his cousins, whom he believes are “a stupid bunch.” However, in his innocence and naivety, the narrator doesn’t understand that he possesses not intelligence but a willingness to follow the dictates of authority figures and an ability to read their desires and do as they please. Whether it is memorizing lines from the Koran or assisting his grandfather in performing his prayer routine, the narrator displays an inclination to make himself useful to the adults in his life so he may receive their praise.
The first section also establishes the narrator’s active imagination. He lies on the bank of the Nile and pictures giants living behind the acacia trees. The inventive imagery transforms into a reflection on his grandfather’s stature, and it is even more evident how the boy idolizes his grandfather by projecting the man’s towering image into fantasies.
The section ends with the narrator boasting about his ability to read his grandfather’s desires and take them as cues for how he ought to behave. The narrator’s ability to read the moods of his grandfather is significant because it hints at the narrator’s empathy. In the first third of the story, that empathy allows him to fall in line with the grandfather’s wishes. However, it is this same capacity for understanding another person’s feelings that will eventually lead the narrator to reject his grandfather and shed his innocence.
