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Chapter 25
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 bakes bread using Rashida’s flour, draping the loaves on top of the ship’s diesel engine. Three sailors are watching him bake it, which makes him nervous. He hopes he used the right ratio of freshwater and seawater––for the salt––so the bread comes out well. The sailors seem impatient for the bread to be ready, so Jamal keeps miming to them that it is not ready yet. He is thankful that Rashida let him use the flour and that her parents thought to pack it. The deck of the boat is filled with water, however, and Jamal is nervous that the boat is leaking. The sailors don’t seem to understand his concerns, and he decides not to say anything about it to Bibi or Rashida.
Taking advantage of his new relationship with Rashida, Jamal bakes bread using her flour for the people on the ship. This exemplifies not only his generosity, but also his resourcefulness and cunning. Obviously, he and his sister need food, but so does everyone else on the boat. Baking it for them guarantees him their favor, and as the man in the yellow overalls proved at the soup station, survival is just as much about social dynamics as it is anything else.
Themes
