Not Logged in.
Book Jacket

In the Shadow of the Banyan


A hauntingly powerful novel imbued with the devastation of monumental loss and ...
Summary and Reviews
Excerpt
Reading Guide
Author Biography

Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

Created: 05/24/13

Replies: 9

Posted May. 24, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
davinamw

Join Date: 10/15/10

Posts: 3442

Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

At the end of the novel, Raami realizes something new about her father's decision to give himself up to the Kamapibal: "I’d mistaken his words and deeds, his letting go, for detachment, when in fact he was seeking rebirth, his own continuation in the possibility of my survival." Why did Raami mistake his intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?


Posted Jun. 04, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebeccar

Join Date: 03/13/12

Posts: 548

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

When traveling through airports, you see children sobbing and clinging to a parent as they get ready to board a plane and go back to the other parent. Raami felt that separation times ten, for she wasn't just saying goodbye for winter break or summer vacation, but she was saying what she sensed was the final goodbye of her life. She felt deserted and was at an age when parents still seem invincible and seem to have all the answers.i felt that it was only when Raami was given Papa's coded note and understood it to be such, did she realize that he loved her so much that he willingly sacrificed himself in the hopes that she would live. I think a good comparison are some of the Jewish families in World War II who gave their children to Christian families as their final gift of parental love.


Posted Jun. 04, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Erin G

Join Date: 05/24/12

Posts: 41

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

She was so close to her father, it had to feel like a betrayal that he was willing to leave her under any circumstances. I think for a child, being with your parent is the most important thing in your life, more important than questions of survival, which must seem fairly abstract at that age. Your mother and father are your entire world.


Posted Jun. 05, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
terri

Join Date: 04/11/12

Posts: 102

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

She loved her dad and they were so close. At first she could not understand why he left. She was young and thought he should have wanted to stay. As time went on and their struggle to survive continued, she came to understand the reason behind his reason for leaving.


Posted Jun. 05, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebajane

Join Date: 04/21/11

Posts: 320

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

It was just so much for a young child to understand. They were living in difficult, sometimes deplorable conditions. It was natural for a child to make the connection between the decline in their lives and the "desertion" of their father


Posted Jun. 05, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
joyces

Join Date: 06/16/11

Posts: 410

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

Any child that has a parent go away in what seems like a final going away is traumatized. For Raami,
because she had a very close relationship with her father, it was totally devastating and beyond her understanding. How could he leave her is all she knew. It took her a lot of time and a lot of help from her mother to make her understand that his only reason for leaving was to advance his family's chance for survival. She was way to young to grasp any of that and had to live through some really bad stuff without him before understanding the importance of his choice or how difficult it must have been for him. A man in his situation would have instinctively wanted to be with his family to protect them. To know they were better off without him and walk away must have taken a really strong will and a lot of love.


Posted Jun. 06, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
alisonf

Join Date: 01/31/13

Posts: 110

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

For a parent to voluntarily leave a child in such circumstances is so painful but no more so than through a child's eyes who had been raised under her father's protection. Conditions were changing so rapidly and it would be easy to blame the absent parent for not protecting you from this. Raami understood this very soon though when she saw so much injustice that no one seemed to be able to make better. The fact that she survived was proof enough of her father's intentions succeeding. I think the notion of survival is also much different in their faith and until she saw her father and his intentions in herself she could understand nothing but the pain of Papa 's absence.


Posted Jun. 06, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
elise

Join Date: 04/22/11

Posts: 101

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

I also think Raami's mother (Mama) blamed her husband for leaving. Mama's father left his family for his "principles" and it seemed she viewed her husband as doing the same thing. Raami may have picked up on her mother's feelings.


Posted Jun. 06, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
paml

Join Date: 10/25/12

Posts: 83

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

At first, Raami felt betrayed by her father. He was no longer around to protect them. Mama also withdrew for a period of time, so that Raami's feelings were validated by her mother's actions. The truth of her father's intentions, I feel was slowly revealed to Raami throughout the novel. Pappa's written words at the end of the novel served to solidify what Raami had hoped.


Posted Jun. 12, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
terri

Join Date: 04/11/12

Posts: 102

RE: Why did Raami mistake her father's intentions, and how does she come to realize the truth about him?

Raami was a child and as a child, it can be hard to understand events that happen. When it comes to people that we love and love us, it makes it even harder to understand the reason behind things that happen. Eventually, Raami does figure it out in her mind why her father did what he did, and she loved him for it.


Reply

Please login to post a response.