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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Foreign Soil, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Place
The Limitations of Hope
Communication and Misunderstanding
Solidarity vs. Prejudice
Summary
Analysis
Avery hangs from the monkey bars. Underneath her school uniform, her black bloomers are tight around her waist. Avery told Avery’s dad she needs new ones, but when they arrived at Target and found the place buzzing with families, he froze, gave Avery some money, and told her to find some lady inside to help her. Avery is only seven—far too young to buy sports knickers from a store by herself. But she went inside anyway. She waited around awhile, then came back out and told her dad they were out of knickers.
Seeing families in Target was triggering for Avery’s father, for some reason—perhaps this is because Avery’s mother isn’t in the picture. Whatever the exact case, it’s clear that Avery’s dad isn’t communicating his thoughts and feelings with his daughter. This leaves Avery, who’s just a young child, alone and vulnerable.
Themes
Now, on the monkey bars, Avery feels faint. Her knees are sore, her arms feel like they’re about to fall off, and her back has started to itch. Avery tries to wiggle away the itch, but it doesn’t work. And then she realizes that she doesn’t know how to get down from the monkey bars.
Like many of the book’s immigrant and minority characters, Avery, as she realizes she doesn’t know how to get down from the monkey bars, finds herself alone and lacking in support—on metaphorical “foreign soil.”
Themes
Down the hallway from the narrator’s (the unnamed writer) bedroom, the narrator’s kid watches a silly kids’ show on TV. The narrator knows they should be glad her kids aren’t that loud. Then the narrator walks toward their bed and climbs on top of the quilt. They look out the window at the Melbourne skyline. Maryam, the narrator’s daughter, asked the narrator if they could take the window with them when they leave; Maryam is only three but has lived in four places so far.
Despite her young age, Maryam has already lived in four places—she’s perpetually on “foreign soil,” with no hometown or culture to anchor her in place. It’s unclear why the family has moved around so much, but the smallness of the apartment, its proximity to the train, and the fact that the writer appears to be a single mother all suggest that the family doesn’t have much money. So often throughout the book, place has affected a person’s access to opportunities, but the reverse is true in this story: the family’s economic situation has impacted the places they live.
Themes
Below the apartment, Irving Street is abuzz with commuters. The narrator (the unnamed writer) looks out the window and sees an old Vietnamese man playing a violin outside the Vietnamese bakery and the Ethiopian coffeehouse. The narrator opens the window so they can hear. They recognize the music: it's a Japanese song called “Ue o Muite Arukou,” or “I Shall Walk Looking Up.” It’s about keeping your head held high and moving past sadness. The narrator’s son’s (Markie) class performed the song at school last year, and the teacher had them sing it in an upbeat style. The teacher also gave the song the name “Sukiyaki,” which was easier for Western audiences to pronounce. Even after Markie researched the song, the teacher still insisted on singing the song in a happy style.
While where a person is born can shape the trajectory of their life, people can also have a big role in shaping the atmosphere of a place. Drawing attention to the old Vietnamese man playing the Japanese song on his violin, the unnamed writer portrays her city as a melting pot of different cultures, showing how the many immigrants who have settled here have brought their traditions with them, turning the city into a multicultural place. Still, this isn’t a guarantee that everyone will respect other cultures, as evidenced by Markie’s teacher’s ignorance about the Japanese song—and her unwillingness to make changes to her interpretation of it as a happy song when Markie brings it to her attention that she’s wrong. Solidarity can be a good, empowering thing, but only so far as people are willing to adapt their behavior to give oppressed peoples or minority cultures the support they need.
Themes
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Meanwhile, back on the playground, Avery is still stuck on the monkey bars. She’s so desperate to get down that she wouldn’t even mind if the mean principal, Ms. Lothian, were to be the one to find her. Ms. Lothian is as mean as the principal in Matilda. Avery’s mum gave her the Roald Dahl book the day of the accident. Avery was about to read it when they entered the roundabout. When Avery woke up after the crash, she found the book beside her hospital bed. Now, Avery wishes she could use magic to move things with her brain like Matilda.
This passage makes it clear why Avery’s mum isn’t in the picture: she died in a car accident. The accident thrusts Avery onto a metaphorical sort of “foreign soil,” forcing her to navigate life without the familiar, comforting presence of her mother. Though this passage gives more insight into Avery’s life, it’s still unclear how her story is connected to the unnamed writer’s story.
Themes
Back at the apartment, the narrator (the unnamed writer) stares out the window at the evening traffic. The rumbling sound of a passing train shakes the bedroom floor and walls. The narrator, a single mother and freelance writer with two kids, thought this place would be temporary. But it’s been a year already, and they’re still here. Markie appears in the door and announces that he hates the captain of the 5:36 Watergardens to City train. The narrator says that finding someone annoying is different from hating them. Markie starts to protest, but the 5:41 train arrives and drowns out his words. Markie always closes his eyes for a few seconds to block out the flash of a passing train. Last winter, his teacher suggested that his hearing was bad. But the unnamed writer knows that the real problem isn’t his hearing—it’s where he lives.
Once more, the story demonstrates the connection between place and the quality of one’s life. The writer wants to give her kids a better place to live, but she can’t afford to. Meanwhile, the apartment’s proximity to the trains directly effects Markie’s success at school and his overall health, negatively affecting his hearing and causing him to develop some of a stress response to the sight of a passing train.
Themes
Meanwhile, Avery continues to struggle on the monkey bars. She’s terrified that she might fall. She saw Avery’s dad crack his head open at Avery’s mum’s funeral. He’d had too much to drink and was walking and talking funny. He slipped in the kitchen, and there’s still a dent where his head hit the fridge.
It seems that Avery’s father isn’t coping well with Avery’s mum’s death—he can’t even deal with his own grief, so it’s doubtful that he’s providing his daughter with the support she needs to make it through this trauma. In not communicating with his daughter about their mutual loss, he leaves Avery alone and suffering in her grief.
Themes
The unnamed writer is worried for Avery. She imagines a strange man approaching Avery and harming her. The writer then redirects her attention toward her laptop screen, on which she is typing Avery’s story. The narrator keeps printouts of rejection e-mails from publishing houses beside her bed. A lot of them say they like her writing but request that she submit material about a different subject—something “with more everyday themes,” or something “that has an uplifting quality.” One publishing house thought that “Harlem Jones” was very good—but instead of ending it with him throwing the Molotov, they suggested it would be better for him to return to “the straight and narrow” and move past his anger.
The connection between Avery’s story and the writer’s story becomes clear: Avery is a character in a short story the writer is currently working on. The many rejection letters the writer receives suggests that the dominant culture’s unwillingness to acknowledge the trauma and tragedy inherent in the lives of immigrants and other oppressed peoples—instead, people want to hear about inspiring stories where hope, determination, and staying on “the straight and narrow” pay off. They don’t want to acknowledge how prejudice and systemic oppression create obstacles for people who exist at the margins of society. Finally, that the writer includes “Harlem Jones” (the second short story of Foreign Soil) suggests that she serves as something of a stand-in for Foreign Soil’s author, Maxine Beneba Clarke—which in turn suggests that Beneba Clarke has received similar critiques in response to her own stories.
Themes
The unnamed writer considers that Avery’s story was supposed to be about love. Just then, Markie runs in, interrupting the writer’s thoughts. She follows Markie out to the living room, where Maryam is watching Giggle and Hoot. Markie tries to make his sister change the channel, but Maryam refuses.
Though the writer wanted Avery’s story to be uplifting, inevitably, tragedy, grief, and conflict find their way into it, perhaps metaphorically suggesting that the happy, ordinary stories the writer’s publishers desire aren’t possible for people who live at the margins of society.
Themes
Back on the playground, Avery is crying on the monkey bars. The other kids didn’t mean to leave her there after recess—they just didn’t realize she was there. Everything changed so quickly for her, and she never even thought to cry out for help. Sometimes, Avery’s dad doesn’t even register that she exists. A few weeks ago, Avery’s next-door neighbor told her she looks just like Avery’s mum—and that’s why Avery’s dad can’t stand to look at Avery. Avery wishes that the neighbor was here now to help her.
Like many of Foreign Soil’s immigrant and minority characters, Avery finds herself alone and lacking in support: her classmates have abandoned her, leaving her with nobody to help her down from the monkey bars. And her father is too consumed with his own grief to comfort and support her. He almost turns her into an enemy—someone who reminds him of his late wife and so exacerbates grief—instead of someone who has been equally affected by the death.
Themes
Meanwhile, the unnamed writer ushers Markie and Maryam toward the apartment’s miniscule bathroom for shower time, promising that the first one in gets ice cream. On hearing this, both kids sprint toward the bathroom. Markie leaps into the shower with some of his clothes still on. The writer’s children shower. Markie sings Duke Ellington in the shower; the lyrics are “about the soul of the music, the uselessness of a melody without a soul.” Maryam joins him in singing. The writer hears Markie dancing around in the shower and worries that he’ll slip and fall. But now both children are singing and dancing under the water. The writer watches them from the hallway and marvels at their unabashed happiness.
Despite their poverty and dire circumstances (symbolized by the smallness of the shower), the writer’s children find ways to be happy, carefree children. It’s easy to sink into despair when one considers all the unfair disadvantages that are stacked up against people living at the margins of society, but the writer reminds herself that it’s also important to relish the happy moments and to maintain hope that things will get better.
Themes
Avery can’t hold on much longer and prepares to fall. But as she slips toward the ground, her body instinctively flips, and she somersaults in the air and lands right-side up, just like the Olympic gymnasts that she Avery’s mum watched on TV. Avery freezes, shocked. She can’t believe she’s okay. She laughs, and then she runs off toward her classroom.
Perhaps inspired by her own children’s happiness, the writer gives Avery a happy ending. Still, the story’s conclusion seems almost too neat: it’s almost as though the writer has decided to just give her publishers what they want, even though she herself believes that happy endings are rare for people living at the margins of society, and that it would be truer to reality to end the story with Avery getting hurt. On the one hand, Avery’s story supports the idea that hope sometimes pays off, and that everything works out in the end. However, the sudden reversal of Avery’s fate—the far-fetched chance that she’s really able to fall down without hurting herself even a little bit—suggests that happy endings like these are fantastical and often not found in reality.
Themes
