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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Copper Sun, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery, Dehumanization, and Resistance
Horror vs. Beauty
Friendship
Memory and Storytelling
Gender, Race, and Power
Summary
Analysis
About a week later, Teenie sends Tidbit, Polly, and Amari to pick peaches for pie. Tidbit climbs into the tree and is supposed to hand peaches down to the girls. Instead, he pelts the girls with them. Amari, thinking of how much Tidbit reminds her of Kwasi, tells him to come down in her own language. Tidbit comes down and asks if that was “Africa talk.” He wants to know where Africa is, and Polly asks what it looks like there. Amari smiles and says it’s full of bright, happy colors, family, chickens, and goats. She thinks of her happy childhood with Tirza, the annoying monkeys, and the overbearing cousins. Everyone there was Black, and she can’t find the words to express what she’s lost. She almost cries as she thinks of how, if she fell in her village, any woman would comfort her.
In the colonies, where nearly everyone around her speaks English, Amari isn’t fully able to pass on her story. While both Teenie and Afi make it clear that Amari must tell her story to future generations, it’s impossible to say just how much of her life in Africa Amari will actually be able to convey in a language that’s not her own. Meanwhile, Tidbit’s mischievous nature and the memories it stirs up in Amari remind her that no matter where she is in the world, children are still the future—and she must protect them, nurture them, and educate them about where they came from.
Themes
Tidbit asks if there are boys like him there. Amari says she had a brother a bit older than Tidbit, but he’s dead. The group is silent for a few minutes, and then Tidbit asks Polly where she came from. Polly says that she grew up in the low country and that she was her parents’ “shining star.” To help Tidbit understand what this means, she asks him to think of how worried Teenie is when Tidbit is out too long—that’s how her parents loved her. Amari is surprised that she understands Polly’s grief. She thought that because Polly is white, her life must’ve been easier. Polly looks off and says that her mother never got to be a lady, but she hoped that Polly would. Amari touches Polly’s hand. Tidbit asks if Amari is going back to Africa, and Amari replies that she isn’t. Silently, they head back to the kitchen.
Though Polly certainly has much more to learn in terms of compassion, kindness, and unlearning racism, this is nevertheless an important moment for Amari. She begins to see that some white people suffer too, in ways similar to how she does. As the girls discover that they have life experiences in common, such as losing their parents, their friendship has more fodder to help it grow and flourish. Polly’s desire to be a lady, however, shows that she still prioritizes being upper class over being kind—becoming a lady, in all likelihood, would entail owning slaves and forgetting the humanity of people like Amari.
Themes
