Three daughters of the eve

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Introduction :
The story of this novel revolves around three friends. “Peri a girls of confused thinking , Shirin
the most sinner and Mona the great believer.” Throughout the story, its found that they are in
pursuit of something. It may be the God, happiness, or love. It’s a very unique novel that
explains two different cultures of Istanbul and Oxford. The author makes the reader want to
climb up the boundaries of these places. The novel is narrated across two timelines, the present
day Istanbul (2016) en route to and at a bourgeoise dinner party and a period of time at the
university in Oxford (2000).

Shafak's descriptions of Istanbul and of Turkey in general are so vivid and alive that the reader
can almost hear the honking of the horns of bottleneck traffic and the smells of rich food served
at the businessman's party, or the acrid smell of fear and hate emanated by the tramp that steals
Peri's purse. It is a novel of current events that link East and West, and this alone makes this
worth reading.
Three Daughters of Eve is a master class in indecisiveness. From Turkey’s uneasy tug of war
between secularism and Islam, to the main character’s fixation with the middle ground, Shafak
skilfully explores the inability to pick a side and its consequences. The book takes on big
questions and renders them to us through the eyes of a precocious child, then a hard-working
student at the University of Oxford, and the mother and wife she grows up to be. Alternating
between the two voices, Peri traces her life, a new episode unfolding with the serving of every
course.
About the author:
Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, academic, public speaker and women's rights
activist. In English she publishes under the Anglicized spelling of her pen-name Elif Shafak.
Shafak has taught at different universities around the world, most recently at St Anne's College
of Oxford University. Shafak writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 17 books, 11
of which are novels, including The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love and Three
Daughters of Eve. Her books have been translated into 49 languages and she has been awarded
the prestigious Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts.
Characters:
 A.Z.Azur:
It's deeply frightening and upsetting how politically divided society is at the moment. When
different factions are so convinced about the certitude of their own ideas and beliefs conflict is
inevitable. Religion continues to be at the centre of many battles, yet in her new novel Elif
Shafak creates the character of A.Z.Azur, a controversial Oxford professor who encourages
dialogue across religious belief systems as he believes that too many people suffer from what he

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calls “The Malady of Certainty”. Every term he holds a selective seminar whose sole purpose is
to probe the philosophical meaning of God.

 Peri:
The center of this story is Peri, a highly intelligent Turkish woman who is confused about what
God means to her.she is stuck in the meaning of her life, reason of her birth , the things she is
adopting are correct or not? She is confused about the connection with God.

 Shirin:
Peri Enrolled in this seminar at oxford , are friends of her Shirin, a bisexual woman with an
Iranian background who considers herself as British as a treacle tart but as out of place as a
stuffed date cake. She use to do high make up, mini skirt, and high heels. She never looked like
student. In the chapter ‘ THE MAP’ shirin introduced herself to Peri.
Shirin is the liberal-minded sinner with no excuses or apologies for who she is, she loves to
provoke reaction and is a willing accomplice come recruiter to the Professor’s circle, it is she
who brings the conservative believer Mona and Peri together.

 Mona:
Mona, a politically-engaged woman of Egyptian descent who is an ardently devout Muslim.
Very honest and devoted for islam. Mona is friend to shirin and Peri and in the chapter “The
Deadly Kiss” they talked about their trip and shirin discussed about her bee sting event on her lip
when she got her lip swelled like a balloon of water.
Peri’s family:
Peri, the protagonist is basically from Istanbul and she has grown up there. Peri’s family is a
typical family of Turkey. Her parents are of different ideologies. Peri’s mother is a very religious
woman who fears God and makes effort to live her life according to the teachings of God.. She
wears the headscarf as well. Whereas, her father is a secularist. After her early education, Peri
gets a scholarship and goes to Oxford University for higher education.
Shafak’s account of Peri’s parents and family is brilliantly characterised and aptly portrays why
she is given the label of ‘confused’, they are complete opposites and over time become even
more so, her two brothers are also polar opposite while Peri, loaded with empathy, understands
all their positions, but can not stand in either of their shoes. Her plan to study in England,
supported by her father and a cause of concern for her mother, was more of an escape for her
than the brilliant opportunity her father imagined.
Three daughters of the eve:
These three women are referred to as “the Sinner, the Believer, the Confused.” They are
individuals caught in a state of flux between different nations, faiths and ideologies. Shafak
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creates a deeply meaningful, extremely relevant and riveting tale about the role belief plays in
these modern women's lives.
Book summary:
Elif Shafak has divided the novel into parts and chapters which reveals the hidden meanings and
links between chapters. This book is systematized as a string of beads which are placed one after
another. The preceding showing past and later shows present.
Part one:

 The handbag:
The story opens up with a polaroid picture, which Peri the protagonist sees after such a long
time. The situation in which she comes across with that picture is as intense as memories related
with that picture. A beggar snatches her bag and she runs after him like she is running after her
past to catch it and to mend it, that she ruined fourteen years back. She sees the polaroid of her
own with her friends and a professor. They are all united and it is like they have been glued
together in a photograph. Their relation seems to be unexplainable as all of them come from
different identities, different backgrounds and above all hold different beliefs. Being different,
ties them together. Peri is so different that her dynamism tears them all apart.
If a woman in her 40s has to run barefoot on the streets of Istanbul in pursuit of a beggar running
away with her faux Hermès bag, and nearly get raped and killed in the process, perhaps some
fortification is in order but for Peri this incident is seminal, particularly when a forgotten
Polaroid photo falls out of her bag during the altercation. “How bizarre,” she thinks, “that the
past came flooding in at the very moment disorder breached the banks of the present,” ushering
in “random memories, repressed anxieties, untold secrets, and guilt, plenty of guilt.

 The mute poet:

in this chapter , peri is confused about the poet who is always quite and she never gets what
exactly the poet is revealing, she is cofused about the connection the poet wants to make with the
God. This chapter involves the wife of poet, who is extremely humble and nice. She made a
sheet for bed by the small pieces sewed them together to make a breautiful creation. It involves a
description of seagull of turkey who is a deadly bird, would never count anyone in his way
regardless of the taste and wife of the poet is searching a good surgeon who can fix the tongue of
the poet that has been hurt by seagull. Author gives the description to peri, about the culture and
history of turkey in this part of the book and peri is wonder on knowing about the truth that her
country has faced in past.

 The knife

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Peri caught sight to the bagger who snatched her handbag , she ran before that begger to hold
back her handbag. She strike him with a small knife and the bag fell down, all the things
including her money, polaroid, lipsticks and everything fell down on the floor. She collected all
that stuff and ran after him , she called the police for that bagger to arrest him, and at the end this
chapter reveals the reason why she was that much worried about the bags stuff, and the reason
was that polaroid that contained all the memories of her oxford university and also a picture of
professor Azur which she canot afford to lose.

 The toy
Peri had a brother umet . his father name is mensur and mother is salma. Peri’s brother is the best
brother in the whole world for her. Umet use to call hime rose-peri because peri liked the name
rose. She play games with umet all the day and everyday. She was 7 years old when his brother
got arrested by police on placing the gun at home under the doll in the cradle. Police raided at
peris home and found many books of English authors, also they checked very single thing at
home and from the toy basket they found Gun that was placed by Umet. They arrested umet for 3
weeks . Mensur blamed Salma for this upbringing and after this event he treated his daughter in a
way to come close to God. Peri was confued in start about the concept of God but Mensur taught
her daily about the concept of righteousness and fate.
This all started form the first half of the book and ended at the forth part where peri got the
answers of all the questions about the GOD.
Part two:
Three Daughters of Eve talks about Peri, a Turkish woman who finds herself thinking back to
her years at Oxford University to distract herself from a boring dinner party. Her reminiscing is
triggered when she finds an old polaroid of herself, her friends Mona and Shirin, and the
rebellious Professor Azur. Much of her thoughts revolve around the scandal that prevented her
from graduating from her dream university.

Shafak's narrative fluctuates between Peri's childhood, her college years at Oxford and the
present, both in the incident with the tramp and then later, at the dinner party. What is revealed
about Peri is that she is a true dichotomy. It's very difficult to figure her out. Her actions oscillate
between very meek to sometimes surprisingly aggressive.

The truly absorbing part of the novel are the many debates sparked between the characters about
religion, country, faith, God, love and feminism. In addition, Peri's education at Oxford coincides
with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 which makes the references to Islam and religion
all the more relevant.

Part three:

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More of a commentary on religion than a story, the novel asks many questions about faith - in
particular, Islam and whether its customs and traditions can be adapted to suit modern life.
Peri's life changes dramatically when she meets the charismatic but controversial Professor Azur
who teaches about God. Peri falls in love but it is a love that will only bring an unexpected twist
and a dark secret that she will have to carry for many years to come. By observing Peri's life in
contemporary Istanbul, Shafak takes a close look at Turkey today and reveals the problems that
Turkish society hides within.
As Peri reveals through flashbacks her years at Oxford, her budding friendship with two very
different women and her growing admiration for Professor Azur, a controversial academic of
divinity at Oxford whose course is much coveted and many times frowned upon by other
scholars. This is when the novel truly begins, the story taking a deep turn into controversial
themes like Islam and feminism, topics that Peri could never explore at leisure in Turkey with
her deeply religious mother and proclaimed secular father.

Peris relationship :
 The circle
The rather ambiguous point is Peri's relationship with her husband. We can discern that it was
perhaps a marriage borne out of convenience going by Peri's own words that what she feels for
Adnan is a deep gratitude, but that "gratitude is not love." The nature of their union is not
explored sufficiently to draw a conclusion, but in later events we can somewhat see that Peri is
genuinely fond of her husband and is generally content by his side, if only a bit unsatisfied. But
this has more to do with Peri than it does with Adnan.

 The psychic:
Shafak saves the best for last, a secret that explains why Peri left Oxford with an unfinished
degree. At the businessman's dinner party, Peri is forced to remember everything she had thought
forgotten when she is taunted by the wife of another guest to speak of her Oxford years and
about Professor Azur. Later, when a psychic draws three figures on a napkin, Peri makes the
choice of setting the past to right, knowing that this is the only way to finally forgive herself and
the one other person she holds responsible for the scandal that broke them, and a terrorist attack
is what finally seems to seal all the events together.

 The youth:
At the heart of the novel is Peri's quest for answers to irresolvable questions about her identity
and faith. She's haunted by a jinni or spirit in times of distress which takes the form of a child's

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face. There is a dark truth about her past which she can't surmount and move on from despite
trying to fashion a new future at university. A dramatic event in Oxford causes her to abandon
her progressive life there and settle into a more traditional role as a wife in Istanbul. This is very
different from how she envisioned her life, but she's not blind to the contradictions and hypocrisy
of the society around her – especially those who are zealous in their nationalism and religion.
Humorously she observes that “There were plenty of people who fasted during Ramadan both to
renew faith and to lose weight. The sacred dovetailed with the profane.” The inequality between
men and women remains a particular concern where she wonders “Was religion an empowering
force for women who otherwise had limited power in a society designed for and by men, or was
it yet another tool for facilitating their submission?” Peri desires to proudly be an active part of
her faith and homeland without submitting to the oppressive dictums of those in power.

Part four:
It feels particularly important to read dynamic and complex portraits of Muslim women's lives
right now. Considering that the US has just enforced a policy temporarily blocking border entry
for anyone from specific Muslim-majority countries, reading about the perspectives of Muslim
lives prevents them from becoming a faceless other. Related to a lot of the specific and general
conflicts Peri faced in this story despite her background and life being so different from my own.
Elif Shafak writes a wonderfully immersive story with complex, nuanced characters. Irrespective
of the current political climate, this is a compelling and accomplished novel in its own right.
“Three Daughters of Eve” is an original and memorable story.
 The sound of God’s absence:
Shirin introduces Peri to ‘God’, a seminar offered at Oxford that she guarantees will change her
life. “You wouldn’t have recognised me a year ago,” Shirin tells Peri, having been “taught” to
“look within” by “walking legend” Professor Azur. Thus enters the Oxford teacher who is
described as somewhat transcendent himself. We find him on the cover of Timemagazine, as part
of a debate with a BBC journalist, in class, and constantly on Peri’s mind. He is anarchic, a
genius and instantly attractive. In him, Peri at long last finds someone who actively discourages
what he calls the “Malady of Certainty”. With him, she does not have to decide how she feels
about faith.

 The night
Naming the character Azur seems like a deliberate choice on Shafak’s part. Azure is the blue
associated with a vast and open sky, to which our eyes are often directed when searching for
God, whether in prayer or for help. In kind, Peri looks to him to unravel religion. “He could see
through her like no one else could,” and for that she falls in love with him.
What first hints at a trite student crush on a dashing professor culminates in a life-changing
scandal that rips apart lives. As we sprint back and forth between Oxford in the 2000s and

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present-day Istanbul, Shafak patiently teases her reader, slowly unwrapping the facts that
overturn all expectations.

 The face of another:

During the course of one meal, Peri lives out an entire lifetime. The two timelines that the novel
is structured on are not to scale and this works most expertly. The pace of the story alternates
between a languid dinner and young adulthood’s key moments, and what is mismatched in pace
is cemented in the various connections between the past and the present. Shafak does not opt for
the obvious story and knits its dynamics into a compact plot that holds its own despite being
centred on complex themes. Peri may be a changed woman now, but the link to her past life
remains, remnants of which are excavated during the events of the day. While the bulk of the
novel deals with an indecisive Peri, our introduction to her includes one reckless choice, that is,
to chase after two beggar children in a busy Istanbul traffic jam. She swears out loud for the first
time in years. She runs. The risk of physical harm notwithstanding, the incident changes her
because she finally accepts that she is unable to let go of the past. The relationship between the
Peri of the past, and the Peri of now, strings together seamlessly.

 The three passions:

But what the dinner achieves is giving a voice to Turkey’s inner frustration with its identity and
existentialist crisis, so pertinent to the country’s present-day seismic cultural shifts. In a haunting
description of the torture of Peri’s brother in the 1980s, the reader shudders to think how many
were meted out the same treatment following the crackdown on those perceived as having
engineered the recent coup attempt. The dilemma of the Muslim world is on full display, through
the micro (case in point being Peri’s family, Mona’s resolute faith and Shirin’s blatant disregard)
and the macro (best illustrated when Shafak describes Turkey’s attempted entry into Europe as
“only to find the opening was so narrow that, no matter how much the rest of its body wriggled
and squirmed, it could not squeeze itself in. Nor did it help that Europe, in the meantime, was
pushing the door shut

Personal analysis:
One thing I loved about the novel was the clear contrasts Shafak created between her three main
characters, making them live together in a situation highly reminiscent of some sort of odd social
experiment. All of the girls were raised in Muslim countries or families; however they have since
taken very different paths in life, and have very different, contrasting beliefs as a result.
On the one hand, there's the feisty Shirin, described as The Sinner, who has long since
denounced the religion she was born into, and is happy to tell anyone who asks her about her
beliefs just that. Her behaviour and appearance are as Western as her religious views. On the
opposite extreme is Mona, The Believer, who never leaves the house without her headscarf and

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is prepared to defend Islam from any criticism. Peri herself - The Confused - is stuck somewhere
in the middle of the two, both figuratively, because of her beliefs, and literally, when the two
often engage in heated debates.
The theme of contrast within Islam is present throughout the novel - the very reason Peri is
undecided about what she actually believes about Allah and religion stems from the fact she
grew up with a devout Muslim Mother, while her Father hardly practised his religion and drank
most of his time away.
In 2016, this debate is depicted as still being very much present, as some members of the dinner
party are conservative Muslims, while others are happy to accept Western influences like
alcohol.
The other underlying contrast present is, as can be expected, between normal, peaceful Muslims,
and religious fanatics, as shown by the references to 9/11, and the distress it causes both the
Muslim and non-Muslim characters.
The character who tries to make sense of religion, and why it can be such a divisive subject, is
Professor Azur. I found him to be both arrogant and pretentious, yet this adds something to the
narrative, which plays with the idea that, whether God exists or not, no one should be egotistical
enough to suggest they understand him fully.
Obviously, a key part of the plot is yet another example of contrast, given it flits between Oxford
in the early 2000s and Istanbul in 2016.
There are a couple of issues I would raise with both settings. In the 2016 part of the story, the
opening is thrilling, as Peri is robbed on the streets of Istanbul, showcasing the more hostile side
of the city. Unfortunately, the rest of the 2016 timeline is far from exciting, as we are shown the
other, more affluent side of the city, in the form of an excruciatingly boring dinner party.
The same can be said of the events at Oxford - I loved seeing the city from the eyes of Peri, who
had never visited a Western country before, and getting to know Shirin and Mona alongside her,
yet I felt the actual scandal that tore them apart was a little anticlimactic. Similarly, I disliked the
overall ending of the novel, as I felt it was a touch too ambiguous.
Ultimately, my favourite part of the novel was not the plot or the characters, but the points it
made about religion. I was fascinated by the debates over Islam, on whether or not it can be
modernised or influenced by the West, as well as how literally its followers should take the
Quran. In a world where Turkey, an Eastern country, is increasingly exposed to influences from
its EU neighbours, this debate seems more relevant than ever before.
Elif Shafak's this novel reveals such a timely confluence of today's issues that it seems almost
clairvoyant. Sexual harassment, Islamist terrorism, the rising tension between the faithful and the
secular, and the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor .
All play out in the pages of "Three Daughters of Eve." That hyper-relevance is one of the reasons
Shafak is so popular in her native Turkey and around the world. The author, who now lives in

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London, speaks in a multivalent voice that captures the roiling tides of diverse cultures. And, of
course, as readers know from her previous novels "The Architect's Apprentice" and "The Bastard
of Istanbul," it helps that she's a terrifically engaging storyteller.

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