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Chapter 31
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 loses Omar and Rashida, but not Bibi. Their belts are tied together, and they are scooping water with vegetable tins below deck. The water is up to Jamal’s waist and Bibi says it’s hopeless. Jamal says they’re making progress, even though they are clearly not. The water is coming in faster than everyone can scoop it out. Bibi says they need to tell the sailors the boat is sinking, but Jamal doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the sailors are already below deck. Jamal is miserable, but he draws inspiration from his dad’s ancestors and their tireless persistence baking bread. Bibi keeps working too, impressing the men around them. Jamal knows she’s able to work so hard because her dad is a baker.
For the first time in the story, Jamal recognizes the value of his baker ancestors, elevating them to the same status as his desert warrior ancestors. What makes the bakers special, he realizes, is their persistence and their ingenuity—qualities Jamal has exhibited throughout his journey without attributing them to his baker ancestors. Now, he proudly recognizes the same qualities in his sister, signaling Jamal’s relinquishment of his former way of thinking about identity and ancestry. While he used to think his sister got all the desert warrior genes, he begins to believe they each inherited qualities from both sides of the family.
Themes
