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Chapter 37
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
Rashida brings dinner to Jamal and Bibi in the tent. Jamal does not want to answer, or eat, or talk to Rashida. He just wants his parents. Rashida reports that the warship did everything they could, searching for hours. Jamal thinks if only they had kept the candlestick, they could have lit a candle, and the rescuers might have found his parents. Jamal wishes he and Bibi were in a government jail instead of their parents dead at the bottom of the ocean.
Jamal and Bibi reach their lowest point so far in their journey. Believing their parents to be dead, neither of them want to eat or talk or do anything, illustrating the devastating physical and emotional effect that loss can have on a person. Though Rashida is incredibly supportive and sympathetic, she can do nothing to ease their grief.
Themes
Rashida gives Jamal his football, saying it got punctured earlier on a barbed wire fence. Rashida sits in silence and then tells Jamal and Bibi that even though their parents are gone, they still have her. Jamal thanks her, but her words only makes him feel a little better, like how almost drowning made him feel better. Rashida leaves, and Jamal says to himself that it’s just him and Bibi.
Jamal learns his football got punctured during the most recent football game—a metaphor for the emotional devastation Jamal feels after learning of his parent’ death. Like his football, Jamal’s hopes and dreams have been punctured and deflated, leaving him with nothing.
Themes
