How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I do not remember that meal very well. I am sure that Diran, conscious of his role as the oldest son and being a natural leader and optimist, said something to raise our spirits and give us hope. (5.2)
But he cannot remember it. Even though Vahan wants this last meal with his family to be special and meaningful, it's vague to him. It's as though he's showing us that he's not the optimist that his brother is, no matter how hard he tries.
Quote #2
Strangely, I wondered who would light the street lamps tonight, and somehow all those unlit lamps and the lamplighters who were not there to light them were the most hopeless sight of all. (6.3)
Street lamps are a weird thing to wonder about when you're being carted off to be held prisoner for no reason. Yet this shows us exactly how Vahan is thinking about his life, not as only what's happening to him and his family, but somehow what it means for the community too. It's doubly hopeless, then, that no one is even around to light the streets or do the day-to-day things that keep a society running.
Quote #3
Whatever pretense of hope or optimism remained inside me had by now completely disappeared, and I reached in the dark for the first hand I found and held it tightly, not knowing or caring whose hand it was. (6.14)
Read this one carefully. Vahan might say that his hope disappeared, but he still has hope to begin with. Some of his family have already been gunned down, while others are held prisoner with him, and yet he's still holding out hope for them.