Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits Essay Questions

Why does Murad in particular have hope for his future?

Murad takes the risk of fleeing from Morocco to Spain in the hopes of securing a new life for himself. He believes that he has a better chance than the other passengers because he can speak both English and Spanish, which increases his prospects for finding a job and settling. He is also educated, so he assumes he will be a viable candidate for a better job. Unfortunately, he is really no better off than anyone else; he doesn't actually make it over there, and even if he did, Lalami implies that he would probably struggle because Moroccans are the recipients of suspicion, stereotype, or complete lack of acknowledgment once in Spain.

What is "home" in the novel?

One of the things that makes the main characters' situations so troubling is that they do not exactly have a "home" in the way home is preferably conceived—as a place of succor, sustenance, and safety. They leave a home that is unable to give them one or all of the prior, and then seek a new home in a place that cannot do that either. Thus, they are forced to reevaluate home as a place and instead see it as a community, as a new sense of self, as an embrace of the past or of a tradition.

Why might immigrants such as the ones in this text be called "harragas," or "those who burn" in Moroccan Arabic?

Lalami herself says, "Whether they were burning their papers, their lives, or their futures, I couldn't tell," and those suggestions are as good as any. There is such a risk of death or failure or shame involved in attempting the crossing illegally, such a siphoning off of certain parts—or nearly all–of one's past and identity, that one must be forced to acknowledge just how dire things are in Morocco to even begin to understand what motivates the immigrants. The term is ominous, yes, and rather reductive, but its mere existence should give us pause.

Why doesn't Martin want to hear the truth about Faten's life back in Morocco?

For a brief moment, Faten and the reader wonder if perhaps there is something more to Martin—perhaps he is interested in her as a person. However, that speculation is quickly disabused when it becomes clear he views her as an "odalisque," an exotic object of his fantasy. He wants her to give the most cliched of answers, not the truth about where and how she lived. She is not a real person to him, and Faten decides that it is not worth her sense of self-pride to continue to keep him as a client.

What is the significance of Murad deciding he wants to tell stories?

Murad decides to tell stories because he has finally let go of some fantasy future in Spain and wants to focus on the place and time he is in now. This necessitates acknowledging his family and his memories. He remembers the stories his father would tell and how much he loved the experience of listening to them, and, as he relates a tale to two customers in the shop, he realizes he has his own stories he would like to tell. This is a form of self-creation and self-definition, and shows how his character has grown since we first met him in the text.