We Need New Names

“If you’re stealing something it’s better if it’s small and hideable or something you can eat quickly and be done with it, like guavas. That way, people can’t see you with the thing to be reminded that you are a shameless thief and that you stole it from them.” 

Darling’s childlike logic is deceptively simple; her logic highlights the fact that the whites who stole Zimbabwe could never get away with it because it is so large, and people witnessed their crime.

“They did not come to Paradise. Coming would mean that they were choosers.” 

Paradise is a shantytown filled with people, but these residents did not choose to live there. The narrative reveals that the inhabitants of Paradise had their lives and homes destroyed and so ended up there because they had no other choice.

“Gradually, the children gave up and ceased asking questions and just appeared empty, almost, like their childhood had fled and left only the bones of its shadow behind.” 

This quote is in relation to families being uprooted from their everyday lives and having to relocate. It underscores the death of childhood or childlike innocence at the hands of trauma as well as the horrors of reality.

“I’ve thought about it properly, this whole praying thing, I mean really thought about it, and what I think is that maybe people are doing it wrong; that instead of asking God nicely, people should be demanding and questioning and threatening to stop worshipping him.” 

Darling applies her childlike logic to the concept of belief. She contends that people should be angry at God for never helping them. People should threaten to abandon God to cause Him to finally act in their best interest.

“He feels like dry wood in my hands, but there is a strange light in his sunken eyes, like he has swallowed the sun.” 

Darling’s father returns from South Africa and is dying of AIDS. Although he’s only a shell of his former self and near death, just by the sheer act of touch and not being ostracized, there is the light of gratitude in his eyes.

“You can tell from his voice that he despises him, despises them all, and that if he could see us up here, he would despise us as well.” 

Under President Mugabe’s rule, blacks in Zimbabwe began reclaiming land from white landholders. Darling and her friends witness this one day, and even though angry blacks surround the white man, he still has a tangible air of hatred about him, a hatred that fuels the entire situation.

“Heavenway is mounds and mounds of red earth everywhere, like people are being harvested, like death is maybe waiting behind a rock with a big bag of free food and people are rushing, tripping over each other to get to the front before the handouts run out.” 

Darling makes an astute comment about the nature of death in her homeland. There are so many dead (and many dying from AIDS) that it looks as if death is offering free food and that people are rushing to death for this food.

“[The adults] found they could bend; bend better than a branch burdened with rotting guavas. Now everything is the same again, but the adults are not. When you look into their faces it’s like something that was in there got up and gathered its things and walked away.” 

This quote references a burial for Bornfree, a young man who was killed for believing in a regime change. Darling notes that, though the adults had once thought like Bornfree that change was coming and so stood tall, with his violent death, they realized that nothing would ever change. They operate now more like broken robots than human beings.

“But we can see, in the eyes of the adults, the rage. It is quiet but it is there. Still, what is rage when it is kept in like a heart, like a blood, when you do not do anything with it, when you do not use it to hit, or even yell?” 

Darling notes how angry and vengeful the adults are at Bornfree’s funeral. Despite their visible anger, they cannot act on this anger without meeting the same fate as Bornfree. To Darling, this type of rage is impotent because it has no outlet.

“They will never be the same again because you just cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same.” 

This quote is in reference to people fleeing their homelands for better ways of life in foreign lands. Although people leave to seek a better life, they will not be the same person because they are leaving behind all their ties to their life and homeland.

“It’s like we are in a terrible story, like we’re in the crazy parts of the Bible, there where God is busy punishing people for their sins and is making them miserable with all the weather.”

Darling has moved to America and mentions this in reference to the weather. Darling’s perception of snow here underscores just how vast the contrast is between her native Zimbabwe and the cold climate of Michigan. 

“There are times, though, that no matter how much food I eat, I find the food does nothing for me, like I am hungry for my country and nothing is going to fix that.” 

Darling, like others, leaves her homeland for America to find a better way of life. One of the things she and others want is to satiate their hunger. Ironically, once they are able to eat enough, they find that they still hunger for their homelands and can never find enough “food” for this type of hunger.

“Stina said a country is a Coca-Cola bottle that can smash on the floor and disappoint you.” 

Darling makes this comment in relation to the fact that she’s left Zimbabwe for America. In her friend’s observation, though America is something that Darling has always wanted, it might also be something that disappoints her due to its fickle and breakable nature.

“In America, roads are like the devil’s hands, like God’s love, reaching all over, just the sad thing is, they won’t really take me home.” 

Just like the inability to feed her hunger for home, Darling finds that, though there are countless roads in America that lead to countless destinations, none of these roads can truly lead her back to Zimbabwe. This realization also hints at the fact that a concept like God’s love is nice, but it can’t bring her home either.

“When somebody talks about home, you have to listen carefully so you know exactly which one the person is referring to.” 

Darling explains that there are different versions of home to different people. She has two versions of home, before America and after. Her mother has three versions of home, while the elderly have perhaps four versions. People have to truly listen to know what version of home someone is referencing.

“It’s hard to explain, this feeling, it’s like there’s two of me, one part is yearning for my friends; the other doesn’t know how to connect with them anymore, as if they are people I’ve never met.” 

Darling had initially promised to keep in contact with her friends and write every day. As she becomes assimilated in America and essentially more “American,” however, she finds that she has nothing in common with her friends back home. Although they annoy her, she also feels sad and guilty at this revelation.

“The thing is, I don’t want to say with my own mouth that if the car costs that much then it means I’ll never own it, and if I can’t own it, does that mean I’m poor, and if so, what is America for, then?” 

Darling sees the red car from Budapest, the one she wanted to buy once she got to America. When she finds out the price, however, she’s floored. Now that she’s older, she realizes that money is everything, but since she has no money, it suggests that her vision of America has been an unreachable one all along.

“In America we saw more food than we had seen in all our lives and we were so happy we rummaged through the dustbins of our souls to retrieve the stained, broken pieces of God.” 

This poignant and poetic quote describes immigrants who have finally reached America. Like Darling did back home, many people abandon religious ideas of faith and hope due to hardships they’ve faced. Now in America, and with such promise, people once again begin to believe.

“Because we were not using our languages we said things we did not mean; what we really wanted to say remained folded inside, trapped.” 

The narrator explains just how important language is in this chapter. Moreover, language is shown to be deceptive and often out of reach when it’s not a native language. Many people struggle with language and connection.

“Because we will not be proper, the spirits will not come running to meet us, and so we will wait and wait and wait—forever waiting in the air like flags of unsung countries.” 

This harrowing quote explains the concept of loss and death for many immigrants. Because their children are raised as Americans, they lose touch with their homelands and customs. This means that their parents will not be grieved or buried properly, and they will not meet their old gods like they would have had they been buried properly back home.

“I read it because hidden things are meant to be discovered.”

Darling reads the diary of her client’s daughter and finds things that even the girl’s parents don’t know about. Comically, yet tellingly, Darling notes that the only reason to hide things is for someone to find them. In other words, secrets will always be discovered.

“There is a strange look in his eyes, like they are not eyes but maybe a pit and something fierce is raging inside.” 

Darling and other guests like the antics of Tshaka Zulu, who lives in an institution. Darling admits that he often acts out just to talk to someone and so isn’t truly crazy. With this quote, however, she sees that he indeed has had a break with reality, and this break is tied to being away from his homeland.

“But you are not suffering. You think watching it on BBC means you know what is going on?” 

Darling feels a strong sense of homesickness and calls her mother. Chipo answers, and when Darling makes small talk like an American, she is shocked to find that Chipo doesn’t care for her trite sentimentality. As such, Chipo accuses Darling of no longer being Zimbabwean.