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Milkweed
Angels symbolize belief in the goodness and persistence of the human spirit, despite evidence of cruelty and suffering. At first, angels are an ambivalent image: when the street orphan gang sees an angel statue in a cemetery, Olek explains to Misha that angels are invisible beings that help people in trouble, but Enos mocks this idea. He spits on the statue, asking why the angels didn’t stop Olek from losing his arm in an accident, or why they don’t spare Jon from dying. Misha wonders about the nature and existence of angels throughout the story. He decides he believes in them, eventually associating them with delicate puffs of milkweed that sail on the breeze, and implicitly with his beloved sister Janina (after she is taken from the ghetto on a deportation train). The problem of cruelty is never resolved, but the persistence of angel imagery suggests that even the Nazis’ worst cruelty can’t stamp out hope.
Angels Quotes in Milkweed
The Milkweed quotes below all refer to the symbol of Angels. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 30
Quotes
She stood on tiptoes and held it as high as she could and let it go. It sailed toward the sky.
"That's my angel," she said.
Then they were all around us, milkweed puffs, flying. I picked one from her hair. I pointed. "Look." A milkweed plant was growing by a heap of rubble.
It was thrilling just to see a plant, a spot of green in the ghetto desert. The bird-shaped pods had burst and the puffs were spilling out, flying off. I cracked a pod from the stem and blew into the silk-lined hollow, sending the remaining puffs sailing, a snowy shower rising, vanishing into the clouds.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Milkweed LitChart as a printable PDF.
Angels Symbol Timeline in Milkweed
The timeline below shows where the symbol Angels appears in Milkweed. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 10
...during a game of hide-and-seek, the boys see a tombstone decorated with a big stone angel. Misha has never seen an angel before. Enos says that there’s no such thing as...
(full context)
That night, Misha asks Uri if Enos is right about angels. Uri says it’s up to Misha—he’s free to believe what he wants. Misha asks Uri...
(full context)
Chapter 18
...the bodies with newspaper and takes them away, and he decides that it must be angels.
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Chapter 20
...more still, not wanting it to fall off. He pictures himself as a stone cemetery angel. Then he faints, but Mr. Milgrom hauls him to his feet before the soldiers notice.
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Chapter 21
...he promises to keep wearing the shoes. As they walk away, Misha asks if an angel will take Jon’s body. Enos sarcastically says that the angel is coming right now—a skinny...
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Chapter 29
...as usual, but they don’t steal food. Misha shows Janina the merry-go-round and the cemetery angel—he tells her that every person has an angel inside them which comes out when they...
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Chapter 30
...with the fluffy seed and then lets it sail through the air, calling it her angel. Soon, puffs of milkweed are flying all around them, coming from a plant that’s growing...
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Chapter 45
...One day, Misha asked Katherine to drive him out of town—he’d found some milkweed, the “angel plant,” and taken it home to plant in a corner of their yard. Katherine doesn’t...
(full context)
