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A Tactical Withdrawal
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Darius the Great Is Not Okay, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
Family
Persian Identity and Culture
Mental Health, Depression, and Connection
Bullying
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Mom wakes Darius up before the azan so they can go see the Towers of Silence. Dad pulls the van around and Darius and Laleh climb into the back. Laleh angrily pouts that she doesn’t want to go and then collapses into Darius. Darius loves Laleh like this: he’s her favorite person. Still, he feels selfish for not wanting to share Star Trek with her.
Even as Darius resents Laleh for ruining his Star Trek time with Dad, he goes out of his way to love and support his sister. It’s nice, he suggests, to be loved and trusted, highlighting again that Darius really just craves connections with his family members.
Themes
Dad navigates up the mountain outside of Yazd until Mom tells him where to pull over. He and Mom walk ahead with Mamou, while Darius decides to walk in the back so he can keep an eye on Babou in case he needs help. Laleh is still angry and insists she doesn’t want to hike, so Darius kneels down and offers to take her to get faludeh when they get back. She leaps ahead to walk with Mamou, and Babou says Darius is a great brother. Darius is shocked by the compliment.
Darius continues to offer support to Laleh—and receive positive attention from Babou. Recall that Darius doesn’t think he’s that great of a brother, which is why the compliment is a bit shocking. But as with family members calling Dad “sweet,” this suggests that other people see both Dad and Darius differently than Darius sees them—and perhaps, they’re more correct than Darius is.
Themes
The Towers of Silence used to be where Zoroastrians buried their dead in a process called sky burial. Babou tells Darius that his grandfather, another Darioush, was buried here, as was his grandmother. Darius follows Babou across the top of the tower, which is empty—sky burial has been illegal for decades, and it’s early in the morning for tourists. Darius wonders if technically, he’s a tourist. But how can he be when this is his own past? Babou sighs that people are buried in cement now, and it’s not the same.
Sky burial entails leaving bodies on these dedicated towers for carrion birds to eat. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Islamic government made the burials illegal. This highlights that while Zoroastrians might have more rights and protections than Bahá’ís in Iran, they still don’t have total freedom to practice their religion—they are, after all, a religious minority. In any case, Babou’s grief at how things have changed is palpable, which gives the impression that he’s stuck in times past as he approaches the end of his own life.
Themes
Babou points across the valley to another tower where Mamou’s ancestors were buried and says that their family has been in Yazd for generations—but now, everyone has moved away. Babou seems small and sad, and Darius doesn’t know what to say. But he realizes that Babou is just as sad as he is. Babou puts a hand on Darius’s neck. It feels almost like a hug as they study the landscape.
Darius maturely recognizes that he and Babou are sad for different reasons. But they’re both sad, and it’s possible to connect over this fact. It’s also worth noting that it’s not Darius’s fault Mom and Dad chose to raise their family in Portland, and Darius doesn’t seem to blame himself for being raised outside of Iran. In this way, he lets Babou take responsibility for his own emotions.
Themes
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