How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I was not told any details (I was never told any details), so it was only my father shaking his head, the dinner table quiet, Uncle Mumpreh talking urgently and quietly to my grandmother. (2.5)
Everyone keeps quiet about the details of what's happening around Vahan—and though they're just trying to protect him, to Vahan, it's like he's an outsider. We can't help but notice that his family perpetuates his innocence by lying to him about what's really going on.
Quote #2
I did not understand. Government officials came to the house, but always in suits and usually to ask my father's advice. But these were policemen. Had my father broken the law, or did the government simply want to consult with him? (3.2)
These are the only two options in his mind. It doesn't even occur to Vahan that something sinister could be happening, because he's so trusting and naive when it comes to what's taking place politically at the time.
Quote #3
I left her room feeling better, even though I knew that everything she had told me about my father was a lie. (3.14)
Hmmm… we know that Vahan's mom is lying to him about his dad, and he knows it too. So why does he feel better when hearing the lie? It's as if he wants to believe in the lie, rather than the truth. It's easier to think his dad is off somewhere with the police, than face the truth that he's been murdered.
Quote #4
"If there is any trouble," he said, "take the poison and it will all be over." No one asked him what kind of trouble could be worse than death. They all seemed to know. (4.23)
Everyone seems to know what Uncle Mumpreh means—except Vahan, who's clueless when it comes to the ways of the world, and can't imagine why anyone could choose to die. It's important that we see Vahan like this—bright eyed and bushy tailed—in the beginning of the novel so we can appreciate how far he comes.
Quote #5
I did not know when I opened my eyes the next morning that it was the last day of my childhood. The day seemed no more ominous than the one before; my heart was no heavier, my fears no greater. As I walked down the stairs to the kitchen, I had no premonition that my family and I were about to share our last meal together. (5.1)
Since Vahan has the advantage of knowing what happens next, he sometimes slips into the present (of him writing) and tells us what is to come. The contrast between the all-knowing, darker Vahan of the future, and the innocent Vahan of the present allows us to see how these events really changed him.
Quote #6
I did not know what to do. I was supposed to be the one who got sick; I was supposed to be the one who Sisak nursed back to health. But somehow we had changed places, and now I was his older brother, his doctor and nurse. I was his last and only hope. (14.13)
Wishing that he had some help, Vahan laments the fact that he—the younger brother—has to take care of the older brother. It's not natural to him. Of course, nothing about the Armenian genocide is natural or makes sense, but Vahan is too caught up in his own troubles and way of life to see it.
Quote #7
I was not a beggar, but I knew as I watched the children that I would beg, that I had to beg. It was not a decision that I questioned or doubted, but a fact as real and as stark as my empty stomach. (16.4)
We hate to point it out, but begging makes Vahan a beggar. He has an idea of himself and who he's supposed to be, but it just doesn't fit with what's happening around him. He might want to believe he's the kid of a wealthy family, but he's still got to beg if he wants to eat.
Quote #8
I might have believed in those soft eyes a year ago, but now I wondered what they hid. It was terrible to know many things a human being could hide, and it explained my father's face and many of his expressions. (21.11)
Oh, Vahan, how you've changed—here we see him suspicious of everyone, even without reason. The stuff he's witnessed and experienced has made him less naive and more jaded when it comes to dealing with new people.
Quote #9
The house seemed empty for many weeks. Chores were done, meals were eaten, conversations begun and ended without anything having really been said. I tried to close my mind to Seta and be who I had been before I knew her. (30.1)
Try as he might, Vahan can't unknow Seta. He wants to get rid of the pain and loss he's experienced, but he's no longer innocent to what's happened to her.
Quote #10
I had been a reflection of a safe and privileged world, and beneath me was a net as wide as my father's influence, as strong as my mother's love. Now I was only one of two hundred and fifty orphans, and my future was nothing more than a white canvas, a block of marble, a lump of clay. (35.5)
When Vahan thinks about his future in light of what's happened, he's still optimistic, but he's no fool. He knows the dark things that happen in the world now, and he realizes that they will be a part of his life moving forward.