Language and Structure Analysis
The writer uses the initial setting description of Sudan to reflect the main character's disturbed feelings towards the country and perhaps create the suggestion that he is still very new to his converted faith and relationship. The old in the title could suggest the past and how he has changed, and the new could be how his union with this woman and her country is changing and transforming him. The heat appears to have stripped everything away, 'bone colored....purity....bareness' which the omniscient narrator explains reminds him of touching a human bone, an ambiguous image which might suggest this is a journey to discover or reveal his inner identity and truth. Without names, the two main characters are distanced from us initially, however the careful dialogue and omniscient narrator soon connects us and draws us into the complex relationship.