1. Iqbal Novel Study Name: Daphne A. 8-73
Quotable Passages Date: January 31, 2012
TOTAL: ______/15 marks
There are many quotable passages from chapter 7 in Iqbal. Below are four
important quotes.
You must respond critically to Passage 1 and Passage 4. Then choose either
Passage 2 OR 3 to reflect on.
In your response, consider commenting on some of the following: special
meaning, connection to a character’s thoughts and feelings, or why this quote
makes you think and want to know more.
You can write your response directly beneath the passage.
* PASSAGE 1
“It means that this kind of life isn’t right. We should return to our families; we
shouldn’t be chained to our looms and forced to work like slaves.” Page 50
RESPONSE: This passage signifies that the life of child labour isn’t right, it is wrong and
shouldn’t be happening. Children should not be working. Kids who are in Fatima and
Iqbal’s age should be in school, where they can play, learn and just enjoy their lives
instead of being in a carpet factory working from dusk until dawn. Iqbal is trying to tell
us that they should be home, with their families, instead of working, we all know how it
feels to be away from our families even just for a little while, but Iqbal has been away
from his family for years! Children shouldn’t be chained to looms, it isn’t humanlike! The
only things we chain in our country are animals, Children are not animals.We should
never chain a human being.Children shouldn’t be forced to work like slaves, they should
be at home, with their family, and treated with love and respect, they shouldn’t be
working at a very young age. Children should have a choice, freedom, and shouldn’t be
forced to slavery. Children have basic rights too, instead of children working in looms,
they should be reading, and writing and playing.
PASSAGE 2
‘There was a precise rule among us: Never talk about the future. Not a single one of us
dared to say, “Next summer,” or “in a year,” or, “when I’m grown up.” Oh yes, we
talked about things we liked to do, and we talked about the day our debt would be

2. cancelled. We talked that hope into the ground. But nobody really believed it. It was
sort of litany, a way to feel good. Otherwise what was left to us?’ Page 53
PASSAGE 3
“Fatima,” he said in a low voice, “next spring you and I are going to fly a kite.
Remember that, whatever happens.” Page 54
RESPONSE: PASSAGE 2
RESPONSE: This passage signifies that some children who are working in the carpet
factory have lost hope, they have stopped dreaming. They are thinking that the debts
written in their slates would never be erased, and that they will never be in someplace
where they can be free. The children talks about the things that they loved, and liked
that they someday want to happen. It is a way for them to forget the bad and horrible
happenings that have happened to them in the factory. The kite that Iqbal is talking
about represents freedom, which they don’t have yet at this time, because Hussain
Kahn kept them in looms to work. But, Iqbal believes that someday the debt is going to
be cancelled, whatever happens, he will do anything for them to be free. Iqbal is
courageous because whatever happens, he will do everything just so he could fly a kite
with Fatima.
* Chapter 8 - PASSAGE 4
‘Before Iqbal’s arrival I had been resigned to my life. I couldn’t even imagine a
different one. Iqbal had sown the seeds of hope in all of us.’ Page 62
RESPONSE: This signifies that before Iqbal has arrived in the carpet factory, Fatima
wasn’t as brave as she is when Iqbal had come.Fatima didn’t think about hope, and the
lines on their slate being erased, she was working like a regular worker. Iqbal was the
one who had brought hope for them. That someday they will be free, and wouldn’t have
to live the life that they are in right now. Iqbal was a courageous person who had given
the children hope, that someday they would stop be working in a carpet factory. Iqbal is
the seed to the growing tree of freedom.