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Chapter 40
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Milkweed, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Relationships
War, Dehumanization, and Innocence
Ingenuity, Resilience, and Survival
Family
Summary
Analysis
Eventually, Misha meets a healthy-looking boy along the track. The boy asks where Misha’s ear is, and Misha explains that he’s going “to the ovens,” following the trains. When the boy asks if Misha is a Jew, Misha says yes. The boy brings Misha some water to drink, and Misha keeps walking.
Misha has heard rumors about cremation ovens at the concentration camps, but in a jarring example of his innocence, all the word “ovens” means to him is nearness to Janina. His instinct is to rejoin his family, no matter what.
Themes
Misha survives on berries, wild scallions, and ditch water. He sleeps in the weeds and often hallucinates, seeing Buffo, Uri, Himmler, Doctor Korczak’s orphans, and Mr. Milgrom. He’s used to Janina being there, copying everything he does, but now he can’t find her. One day, he wakes up to see a man standing over him.
Misha is used to scrounging for survival, albeit in a much different setting. And now, bare survival is less important to him than reuniting with the family he loves—something he lacked at the beginning of the story.
Themes
