Previous
Dead (p. 63–70)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ghost Boys, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Progress, Storytelling, and Justice
Racism and the Law
Childhood
Fear
Education
Summary
Analysis
December 8. School. Because Carlos sits next to Jerome in every class, Jerome notices that Carlos is very thin and keeps dozing off as if sleep-deprived. Jerome is longing for the end of the school day, which has already been too eventful. He’s bewildered: when he’s well-behaved, he’s alone and gets beaten up, while today—when he helped terrorize Eddie, Mike, and Snap—he made a friend and didn’t get beaten up. He’s also worried: he doesn’t have a toy gun to protect himself in the future.
Readers know that Jerome’s Pop has taught him ugly facts about the world to keep him safe as a Black child in a racist society. Yet Jerome is still too young and innocent to fully understand that a toy gun is a danger to him—though readers by now suspect that Carlos’s toy gun is the reason Officer Moore will shoot Jerome. Thus, the toy here symbolizes the discrepancy between Jerome’s childishness—his main worry is bullies—and the reality, which is that authority figures like Officer Moore will see a Black boy with a gun and be afraid, even if the gun is actually a toy.
Themes
When the bell rings, Jerome says goodbye to Carlos and runs outside to meet Kim. Carlos follows him and asks to hang out. Pulling the gun far enough from his pocket that Jerome can see, he suggests that they pretend they’re killing zombies. When Jerome—a little scared of the gun, even though it’s a toy—insists that he has to go home, Carlos offers to let Jerome have the gun for the day.
The game Carlos wants to play with the gun is imaginative and childish: he wants to pretend to be a zombie-hunter, not any real-life figure. Yet Jerome still fears the toy, which suggests that at some level, he understands that the toy might be misperceived as a real gun.
Themes
Kim shows up. Carlos introduces himself as Jerome’s friend, which makes Kim smile happily. Then he offers Jerome the gun—which makes Kim back up. Carlos reassures her that it’s just a toy. Carlos is about to tell Kim what he and Jerome did when Jerome shushes him. Carlos apologizes, steps closer to Jerome, and explains in an undertone that he just wants to show gratitude to Jerome for helping him and that “friends share.” Jerome sees Carlos’s anxiety and hopefulness—but also Kim’s desire that he not take the gun.
Even after Kim knows the toy is not a real gun, she doesn’t want Jerome to take it. This detail suggests that even a young Black child like Kim is aware on some level that people are more likely to mistake a toy gun for a real gun in Jerome’s hands because they believe Black boys are dangerous. Thus, again, the toy symbolizes the racist refusal to recognize Black children as children.
Themes
Jerome reflects on how he’s constantly trying to be a good kid: comforting Ma and Grandma, taking care of Kim, helping Carlos out. He wonders why he can’t cut loose and pretend to be a Rogue One rebel—or even use the gun to ward off Eddie if he tries to beat Jerome up on the walk home from school. Jerome tells Kim that the gun is only a toy and that everything will be fine. When Kim points out that Ma, Grandma, and Pop would be mad, Jerome realizes that that increases his desire for the toy gun.
Jerome wants to act like a kid: to play make-believe (Rogue One is a 2016 film in the Star Wars franchise) and to misbehave occasionally. Sadly, readers know that Officer Moore is going to misperceive Jerome as an adult precisely because he acted like a normal kid—again, the gun symbolizes how racist bias prevents authorities from seeing Black children as children.
Themes
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Carlos tells Jerome and Kim that it’s fine and puts the toy gun back in his pocket, but Jerome tells Carlos that he wants it. Carlos, smiling, stealthily hands the gun to Jerome and sprints off. Holding the gun, Jerome notices his hands trembling and wonders why he’s frightened of a toy. Kim starts stomping toward home. Jerome follows her, telling her how he made a friend and didn’t get beaten up today. He knows she’ll realize that he’s tacitly begging her not to tell Ma, Grandma, or Pop about the toy gun. When she takes his hand, he knows she won’t.
Jerome’s shaking hands reveal that on some level, he knows Kim’s worries about the toy gun are rational: people really are more likely to mistake the toy gun for a real gun because Jerome, a Black boy, is holding it. Yet Jerome is too much of a child to heed this depressing fear: he wants to cement his new friendship with Carlos, play, and misbehave.
Themes
