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Chapter 2
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 yells at Bibi to get down, but she keeps throwing stones at the tank. Eventually she lies down, but when the tank does not shoot them, they decide to stand up. Jamal tells Bibi to run home to help Yusuf—who only has one leg—while he gets the ball back. Jamal remembers what his mom told him about her desert warrior ancestors and tries to channel their bravery, asking the tank to return the ball, claiming that football is going to be his career. The tank does not respond, however, and Jamal goes to remove the wedged ball from under the tank.
Jamal’s run-in with the tank makes him think of his mother’s ancestors, the desert warriors. To him, they represent bravery, and he tries to channel them to muster up the courage to retrieve the ball from the tank. This illustrates the importance Jamal attaches to his heritage, and the impact that his ancestors’ identity has on own self-perception. Because they were desert warriors, he believes some part of him can be a desert warrior, too.
Themes
Jamal is not strong enough to pull the ball from under the tank. He feels pathetic and screams at the tank, bemoaning his lack of bravery. He believes Bibi got all the desert warrior genes and that he only has the bravery of a baker. After his screaming, he feels hot and wonders if he will die. Suddenly the tank starts to drive away, leaving without running over the ball. Jamal grabs the ball, thanking both his warrior and baker ancestors. He hears a scream in the distance, however, and starts running back towards Bibi. Yusuf yells that Bibi has stepped on a landmine.
Jamal’s relationship to his desert warrior ancestors sours with his inability to retrieve the ball. Though he favors the desert warriors on his mother’s side, he believes he only inherited his father’s baker genes, and feels shame that he is unable to live up to the desert warrior legacy. This illustrates Jamal’s immaturity, not only for being too hard on himself—he is taking on a tank after all—but also for his overly simplistic approach to identity.
Themes
