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Chapter 6
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 and Bibi are shocked and angry about having to leave their home. Bibi starts to cry, and their mom hugs her, pulling out her ancestor’s candlestick for good luck. She tells Jamal to pack, and Jamal sadly realizes all the things he cannot take with him. He follows his dad to the basement and sees him say goodbye to an oven that has been in his family for generations. Jamal realizes his mom is in the basement too, burying the school supplies. Jamal starts to cry but then sees the painting of him scoring a goal in the World Cup Final. He looks like a desert warrior in the painting, and Jamal becomes determined to find a way to stay.
Jamal and his family struggle with the task of packing up their home and possessions. His father says goodbye to his family’s ancestral oven in the basement, and his mother says goodbye to her school supplies. For Jamal, leaving turns out to be too much to process, and he decides to find a way to stay in Afghanistan. This underscores his immaturity, for he naively believes he can succeed in finding a way to stay in Afghanistan where his parents cannot.
Themes
