Throughout “The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse,” Saroyan paints a picture of the Armenian immigrant experience. Although the narrator, an older version of Aram, tells the story through the eyes of his nine-year-old self, the narrator nevertheless portrays the other characters’ emotional and moral complexities. Through their complexities, Saroyan explores the theme of Duality and the Immigrant Experience. Small joys feel powerful to the characters in Saroyan’s story, and the heavy burdens that come with life in America for these characters, such as poverty and language barriers, don’t detract from that.

The story sheds light on the hardships that permeate the lives of the characters. It hints at the isolation that immigrants may feel upon settling in the US, as evidenced by the character John Byro, who, as Aram reports, was “an Assyrian who, out of loneliness, had learned to speak Armenian” (8). Other characters suggest that his uncle Khosrove’s irritable temperament is due to the tragedy of forced displacement and the corresponding loss of home and culture. About Aram’s uncle, Aram’s mother says, “It is simply that he is homesick and such a large man” (7).