In Chap­ter Eight of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the nar­ra­tor finds her­self ensnared in the ten­sion of her house­hold, specif­i­cal­ly in her room while prepar­ing for a cal­cu­lus assign­ment. Despite her inten­tions to focus, her anx­i­ety grows as she antic­i­pates her father’s immi­nent out­burst, a cycle she knows all too well. The atmos­phere becomes unnerv­ing­ly qui­et, prompt­ing her to slip out of her room, dri­ven by a mix of fear and curios­i­ty to lis­ten. She under­stands that the dread of antic­i­pat­ing the con­flict is often worse than the actu­al event, wish­ing for the tur­moil to begin to reclaim a fleet­ing sense of safe­ty after it pass­es.

Peer­ing out her win­dow, she observes her father deal­ing with a trash bag in the yard, a task that stirs a deep­er sense of unrest. His truck, embla­zoned with “BARNES CONSTRUCTION,” caters to the expec­ta­tion of fam­i­ly pride, yet she knows the truth—that her father’s dreams of foot­ball glo­ry were crushed by an injury, rel­e­gat­ing him to local leg­end sta­tus, thus leav­ing a lega­cy of unre­al­ized poten­tial entwined with anger and dis­ap­point­ment.

When the nar­ra­tor notes the mess on the truck, sul­lied by crow drop­pings, it sym­bol­izes much more than a pet­ty incon­ve­nience; it’s a reflec­tion of their chaot­ic life. Her father’s anger man­i­fests as he dis­cards trash reck­less­ly, pro­vid­ing fod­der for the townsfolk’s jokes and her own under­ly­ing fear. The pres­ence of her moth­er, pas­sive­ly try­ing to main­tain order, only exac­er­bates the nar­ra­tor’s feel­ings of help­less­ness.

As the night pro­gress­es, ten­sion esca­lates when a dish slips from her moth­er’s hands, which incites fur­ther anger from her father, result­ing in shat­ter­ing glass scat­tered across the floor. In a moment of des­per­a­tion, the nar­ra­tor defends her moth­er, but this only earns her father’s ire. He storms out, tem­porar­i­ly leav­ing the fam­i­ly in the after­math of his rage.

Right after, the nar­ra­tor tries to com­fort her moth­er as they clean up the bro­ken glass, under­scor­ing the dis­qui­et that hangs over their house­hold. Her moth­er’s lament that things weren’t always this way stark­ly con­trasts with the nar­ra­tor’s per­cep­tion that her father’s anger is a con­stant in their lives. The chap­ter clos­es with the nar­ra­tor con­tem­plat­ing the nature of their father’s rage, pon­der­ing whether he needs them present to fuel it—reflecting on a painful truth that res­onates with­in their fraught exis­tence.

In Chap­ter Eight of “The Choco­late War,” we are intro­duced to The Goober, a fif­teen-year-old who finds solace and beau­ty in run­ning. His move­ments are flu­id, and dur­ing these moments he tran­scends his insecurities—his acne, awk­ward­ness, and shy­ness fade away. The act of run­ning sharp­ens his mind and pro­vides him with a sense of joy and deter­mi­na­tion, as if noth­ing is beyond his reach. He enjoys the phys­i­cal exer­tion, rel­ish­ing the pain that reminds him of his strength and endurance. The com­mu­ni­ty acknowl­edges his tal­ent, call­ing out play­ful encour­age­ments as he sprints down the street.

How­ev­er, this chap­ter shifts dra­mat­i­cal­ly as The Goober finds him­self trapped in a tense sit­u­a­tion in Broth­er Eugene’s home­room. Over­whelmed by ter­ror, he grap­ples with intense anx­i­ety rem­i­nis­cent of a wak­ing night­mare. The room feels sur­re­al, and he is painful­ly aware of his surroundings—the tools, fur­ni­ture, and dark­ness creep­ing in as night falls. At this moment, The Goober is con­sumed by the thought of com­ple­tion. He has been tasked with an ardu­ous assign­ment from The Vig­ils, and wor­ries about fail­ing and dis­ap­point­ing every­one, includ­ing him­self.

As the hours pass, his iso­la­tion deep­ens, height­en­ing his fear­ful­ness amidst the eerie ambi­ence of the class­room, filled with strange sounds that evoke his child­hood night­mares. Just as despair reach­es its peak, a noise piques his curios­i­ty. Relief wash­es over him as he real­izes he is no longer alone. A group of masked class­mates enters the room, ini­tial­ly strik­ing fear in him but even­tu­al­ly offer­ing assis­tance. The masked leader empha­sizes the impor­tance of the task, instill­ing both anx­i­ety and com­fort in The Goober. They take over the task, and what seemed insur­mount­able trans­forms into a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort that reduces the bur­den of the assign­ment. The chap­ter clos­es with a sense of cama­raderie, as the group spends the next three hours work­ing togeth­er to com­plete the dif­fi­cult job.

In Chap­ter Eight of “Lord of the Flies,” titled “Gift for the Dark­ness,” Ralph and Pig­gy con­front the dark real­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion on the island. Fol­low­ing their fright­en­ing encounter with the beast, Pig­gy express­es his anx­i­ety about their safe­ty, while Ralph reflects on their inabil­i­ty to fight against the fears that haunt them. They dis­cuss their sit­u­a­tion on the beach, where the ten­sion esca­lates as Jack and Ralph clash over lead­er­ship and the dimin­ish­ing sig­nif­i­cance of the conch as a sym­bol of order.

Jack­’s frus­tra­tion mounts as he feels under­mined, which prompts him to gath­er his hunters and assert his author­i­ty. He declares that Ralph is unwor­thy of lead­er­ship and ral­lies the boys to join him instead, empha­siz­ing the lure of hunt­ing and defi­ance against the fear rep­re­sent­ed by the beast. The group ulti­mate­ly votes to reject Ralph and align with Jack, embody­ing a shift towards sav­agery and chaos.

In the midst of this tur­moil, Jack leads his hunters on a pig hunt. Their suc­cess­ful kill becomes a turn­ing point, as Jack offers the pig’s head, the “Lord of the Flies,” to the beast, solid­i­fy­ing their descent into bar­barism. Fol­low­ing the bru­tal hunt, the boys engage in cel­e­bra­tions, mark­ing a dis­turb­ing embrace of vio­lence and pri­mal instincts.

Mean­while, Simon rep­re­sents a con­trast­ing per­spec­tive, sens­ing the true nature of the “beast” lies with­in them­selves. Iso­lat­ed from the oth­ers, he con­tem­plates his thoughts on the dark ten­den­cies exhib­it­ed by the boys. Simon’s eerie encounter with the pig’s head sym­bol­izes his bur­geon­ing aware­ness of the inher­ent evil in human­i­ty, as he strug­gles with the impli­ca­tions of their actions.

As the chap­ter con­cludes, a sense of fore­bod­ing hangs over the group. Ralph and Pig­gy, although dis­tanced from Jack­’s sav­age rev­el­ry, face an esca­lat­ing threat, aware that the remain­ing frag­ments of civ­i­liza­tion are unrav­el­ing amidst the grow­ing chaos. This chap­ter high­lights the ten­sion between civ­i­liza­tion and sav­agery, encap­su­lat­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of the boys as they grap­ple with their fears and impuls­es .

In Chap­ter Eight of “The Bread­win­ner,” Mrs. Weera returns to help Par­vana and her fam­i­ly. Excit­ed by her pres­ence, Par­vana engages active­ly in this new rou­tine shift, which restores a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy to their lives, allow­ing her moth­er to feel like her­self again. Mrs. Weera and Par­vana’s moth­er decide to col­lab­o­rate on start­ing a mag­a­zine, while Par­vana con­tin­ues to bring in an income from her pre­vi­ous work. Noo­ria takes on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of look­ing after the younger sib­lings.

Par­vana accom­pa­nies Mrs. Weera to col­lect her belong­ings, admir­ing her dis­tinc­tive, con­fi­dent walk. Mrs. Weera express­es her past hard­ships, reveal­ing how the war and bomb­ings have affect­ed the last of the Weera fam­i­ly. They man­age to uproot quick­ly, load­ing a small trans­port vehi­cle called a karachi with Mrs. Weer­a’s few belong­ings, includ­ing a medal she won for run­ning.

After a busy day, Par­vana offers to fetch water, bring­ing Maryam along under the guise of the boy, Kaseem, teach­ing her to expe­ri­ence the out­side world for the first time. The fresh air invig­o­rates both Maryam and Par­vana, who makes shop­ping out­ings with their moth­er. The fam­i­ly begins to fall into a sus­tain­able rou­tine, where they make do with lim­it­ed resources but still gath­er some excite­ment from exist­ing out­side.

Par­vana secret­ly wish­es to reunite her fam­i­ly by allow­ing her moth­er and Noo­ria to also go out­side. This hope­ful plan meets ini­tial hes­i­ta­tion but is final­ly embraced, lead­ing to joy­ous out­ings in the sun. Despite the strug­gles of dai­ly life, Par­vana is hap­py, although the absence of her father weighs heav­i­ly on her.

In a poignant moment, Par­vana mis­tak­en­ly believes she sees her father, only to dis­cov­er a stranger instead. This encounter serves as a reminder of her father’s impris­on­ment. She dis­cov­ers small tokens of col­or on her blan­ket, hint­ing at a con­nec­tion or move­ment from the house near­by. Ulti­mate­ly, Parvana’s life shifts dra­mat­i­cal­ly when a tea boy spills on her blan­ket and reveals him­self as a class­mate, sig­ni­fy­ing the blend of hope and uncer­tain­ty in her sit­u­a­tion.

The days danced between severe storms and unex­pect­ed heat, stark­ly con­trast­ing like a chess­board. The char­ac­ters attempt­ed to estab­lish a sense of nor­mal­cy in their new home, sal­vaging pos­ses­sions that the Min­istry had allowed them to keep. Mean­while, the Min­istry entered a chaot­ic lock­down phase. Admin­is­tra­tive teams bat­tled with data migra­tion issues, email tech­ni­cal­i­ties, and faulty com­mu­ni­ca­tion devices, lead­ing to absurd mishaps like Simel­lia get­ting stuck in a mal­func­tion­ing vestibule, spark­ing alarms and chaos.

Dur­ing this pan­de­mo­ni­um, the pro­tag­o­nist was en route to a meet­ing with Adela when they encoun­tered the source of the com­mo­tion. Simel­lia was attemp­tive­ly recit­ing “Richard II” on the oth­er side of a stuck door. Once freed, she appeared changed: her uni­form clung to a thin­ner frame, and her hair fluffed out into a wild Afro—something the pro­tag­o­nist not­ed but chose not to com­ment on. The ten­sion between them high­light­ed the uncer­tain atmos­phere sur­round­ing them, wors­ened by rev­e­la­tions about their col­leagues fac­ing restric­tions and pro­tec­tive cus­tody.

The chap­ter then shifts to a spring out­ing to a Turn­er exhi­bi­tion, a seem­ing­ly cheer­ful event cloud­ed by deep­er issues. The expats, each adapt­ing poor­ly to their new cul­tur­al land­scape, engaged in a pecu­liar game enti­tled “ghost hunt­ing,” where they searched for famil­iar faces in odd places. As they wan­dered through the exhi­bi­tion, their ban­ter revealed their strug­gles with inte­gra­tion and a lack of mean­ing­ful engage­ment with the Min­istry.

As the expe­di­tion unfold­ed, lay­ers of emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty appeared against the back­drop of beau­ti­ful Turn­er paint­ings. The pro­tag­o­nist felt a mix­ture of affec­tion and anx­i­ety when observ­ing Gra­ham, whose past and con­nec­tion to the exhi­bi­tion made the vis­it a bit­ter­sweet expe­ri­ence. The pro­tag­o­nist wres­tles inter­nal­ly with the dynam­ics of their rela­tion­ships, feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy, and the need to nav­i­gate their affec­tion for Gra­ham while also man­ag­ing their pre­car­i­ous sta­tus with­in the Min­istry’s hier­ar­chy.

Gra­ham’s somber reflec­tions on his past seep through as he grap­ples with the loss of his for­mer life, ulti­mate­ly con­nect­ing deeply with the pro­tag­o­nist. The strain of his his­to­ry man­i­fests in heart-wrench­ing dis­cus­sions about grief, iden­ti­ty, and belong­ing, with a pal­pa­ble sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty float­ing in the air between them. This emo­tion­al tur­moil is encap­su­lat­ed in moments of ten­der­ness jux­ta­posed with their com­plex soci­etal struc­tures and the ever-loom­ing influ­ence of the Min­istry in their dai­ly lives .