bring out the irony
in the chapter,
The summer of a beautiful
white horse?
Answers
The irony in the story has to do with the idea of honesty and what it means to be "honest." Even though the Garoghlanian family is "renowned" for its honesty, Mourad steals a horse for the thrill of riding it. Aram finds it hard to believe that this could be the case—how could a member of his family steal?—but in fact there is a certain disconnect between how the tribe self-identifies (they were "proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in right and wrong") and their actions. Mourad is one of the "crazy" members of the family: "every family has a crazy streak in it somewhere, and my cousin Mourad was considered the natural descendant of the crazy streak in our tribe." The theft of the horse can be explained as Mourad's craziness coming out or as a way for him to discover his "way with horses." Either way, the brothers' secret is made possible, in a way, by their reputation for honesty. When the horse's owner catches the boys with the horse, he says that even though their horse is the "twin" of the stolen horse, their family's reputation for honesty will keep him from suspecting them of theft. And Mourad's training of the horse does benefit the owner; when the horse is returned, he notices how much better behaved it is. So even though Mourad did steal the horse, the outcome of this theft was beneficial for everyone concerned. As Mourad's "crazy" uncle Khosrove would say, "It is no harm; pay no attention to it."