Burnt Shadows Lesson Plan

Sajjad’s death happens abruptly, and then the novel jumps forward in time. The same was true for Konrad’s death. Why do you this Shamsie structures the story this way? What is the effect?

Shamsie seems to purposefully omit Hikoro’s early stages of grief both times she loses love. Students might conjecture that the reason for this is that she doesn’t want the story to be focused on grief, or at least not individual, purposeful grief. At the end of chapter 32, Hikoro gets upset with Kim at her suggestion that the monstrous crimes that happen in the world (such as the US dropping atomic bombs on Japan) don’t have to have more significance than the simple fact that they...