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Chapter 22
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boy Overboard, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Immigration, Family, and Home
Identity and Ancestry
Hope
Gender and Discrimination
Summary
Analysis
Jamal calms Bibi down, promising to radio the other boat to turn around. They look for smugglers but can’t find any. The sailor in the yellow overalls confronts them and Bibi starts hitting him again. He starts to come for them, but a large smuggler with hairy arms stops him. Jamal explains their situation to the new smuggler, but the man says they don’t have radar or radio. Jamal wants to chase the other boat, but the man tells him to be quiet or he’ll throw them both off the boat.
Without his parents, Jamal is forced to take full responsibility for his and his sister’s well-being. With the weight of this new responsibility, Jamal proves to be surprisingly capable. While his past solutions to problems have often been impractical—like baking bread to attract his dad—here he acts calmly and practically, asking the smugglers to radio the other boat. Though met with failure, Jamal’s efforts underscore his newfound maturity.
Themes
Bibi is angry, and Jamal tries to calm her down. He says if they anger the smugglers they won’t get to Australia and won’t see their parents again. Jamal looks at the other boat and thinks about how a desert warrior could swim to the other boat, pulling this one along behind him. Jamal says he’s not a desert warrior, however; he’s just a kid who wants to keep his family together. Bibi starts to cry and says she wants their parents. Someone agrees with her, and they see that it’s the boy from before with their ball. His parents are also on the other boat, and he introduces himself as Omar. Jamal feels guilty and invites him to sit with them.
Confronted by the harsh reality of his and Bibi’s predicament, Jamal begins to act more maturely. Not only does he emphasize the value of patience to Bibi, a quality he himself has struggled with in the past, but his understanding of his relationship to his ancestors also begins to evolve. Recognizing his limitations as a “kid,” he stops criticizing himself for falling short of the desert warrior legacy.
Themes
