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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Our Missing Hearts, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Free Speech, Patriotism, and the Corruption of Truth
Surveillance, Fear, and Discrimination
The Power of Art and Imagination
Parental Responsibility, Rights, and Experience
Privilege, Silence, and Complicity
Summary
Analysis
A letter addressed to “Bird” arrives on a Friday. It has been inspected and deemed harmless by something called “PACT.” The recipient—a boy named Noah—knows the letter is from his mother, Margaret, the only person who would still call him Bird, his chosen name. He remembers how his kindergarten teacher disliked his unofficial moniker, but his mother insisted on it. Now that Bird’s mother is gone, his father (Ethan) says it is best if he goes by Noah, another change to adjust to in addition to his new apartment and new school. Bird’s mother left three years ago, and Bird is now 12 years old. The letter Bird has just received contains a sheet of paper covered in drawings of cats.
Though PACT has not yet been defined, the inspection of personal mail indicates some level of surveillance and censorship in the world of the novel, while also signaling this is not the reader’s world. Bird’s complicated family situation also points to some as-yet unknown reason behind Margaret’s sudden departure. Bird clearly misses his mother—she was the only one to stand up for his chosen name. Margaret’s cat drawings deepen the mystery of the world and her absence, since Bird cannot decipher what she is trying to tell him, implying a hidden message as well as a reason for hiding it.
Themes
Bird remembers his friend Sadie asking about Margaret. In fifth grade, he and Sadie bonded over their motherlessness. Sadie claimed her own mother (Erika) was a hero, though everyone knew she was taken from her parents because they were “deemed unfit to raise her.” Rumors followed Sadie: for instance, people claimed that her parents were Chinese sympathizers and that Sadie had been through several foster homes already because she was troublesome. Sadie told Bird she would go to Baltimore to find her parents when she was old enough, but he couldn’t see how. In sixth grade, Sadie disappeared, leaving Bird friendless.
Sadie and Bird’s kinship surrounding their missing mothers shows that parental separation is central in the novel. That Sadie’s opinion of her mother diverges from what others (including the authorities) think of her suggests one view or the other is unreliable. The mention of “Chinese sympathizers” introduces race and nationality as a point of conflict, and it further suggests that certain ideas are being policed and punished by removing children from their families. The loss of Sadie and Margaret positions Bird as a very lonely 12-year-old.
Themes
Bird knows that if Ethan sees Margaret’s letter, he’ll burn it, so he hides it in his pillowcase until he can discover what it means. When Bird’s mother left, his father burned her books and smashed her cell phone, telling Bird to forget her. A boy at school told Bird Margaret was a traitor who incited riots. Bird’s mother was a PAO—a person of Asian origin, making her more susceptible to scrutiny under PACT, a still-undefined policy centered on “patriotism and mindset.” Bird told the boy he had nothing to do with his mother, but it pained him to do so.
Something about Margaret’s letter—or speaking about Margaret in general—seems dangerous to Ethan, to the extent that he has destroyed her belongings and tried to eradicate Bird’s memory of her. Ethan has not explained himself to Bird, as evidenced by the fact that Bird gets his intel from classmates. The rumor that Margaret is a traitor suggests she ran into trouble with the government; here, her race sounds like an extra strike against her credibility. The pain Bird feels disowning his mother indicates he does not understand why he must do so.
Themes
Ethan returns home from his job at the university’s library. Bird and his father live in one of the dorms now, though they used to have a house. Bird works on homework, avoiding an assignment about PACT—the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act. In school, Bird tries not to attract attention, where he is bullied and pitied for Margaret’s transgressions. Ethan used to teach linguistics at the college. He also speaks several languages and loves etymology. The two of them don’t talk much about their days or Bird’s mother, though Bird misses his life with her, as he sporadically remembers it. Bird begins his essay while his father reads the newspaper. He writes that PACT is a law that ended “the Crisis.”
Bird and Ethan’s lives feel narrow, each of them keeping to the things expected of them and trying not to attract attention. Their lack of communication amplifies this feeling of isolation. PACT’s official title lends some insight into the kind of ideas that are not permitted in this surveillance state, but it still remains vague and ominous. There is the sense that things in Bird’s world made more sense before his mother left. The mention of “the Crisis” indicates some nationwide upheaval which PACT supposedly helped to alleviate.
Themes
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Later, Bird and Ethan are eating in the university dining hall when they hear a commotion outside. Bird’s father, always intent on keeping him out of trouble, tells him to stay seated while he and others peer out the window. They can hear the police instructing people to shelter in place, and Bird imagines an angry mob outside, like during the Crisis. Disruptions were common then, when unemployment and food shortages caused frequent uproar. Bird’s teachers have always insisted that PACT put an end to such disruptions.
Although Bird is in no obvious danger, his safety is clearly Ethan’s top priority here, pointing again to a fearful disposition. The disruption itself is characterized as out of the ordinary, something Bird has only learned about in history class. That PACT is credited with the general disappearance of “disruptions” portrays it as a measure of crowd control.
Themes
Recently, strange things have been happening all over the country, artistic protests of PACT, all of them anonymous. Bird’s teacher has said that it is their civic duty to report anyone planning such disruptions. It seems a disruption is happening outside the dining hall, and it fills Bird with a strange excitement. When it is safe to leave, they see that someone has spray-painted a large heart in the intersection, with the phrase “BRING BACK OUR MISSING HEARTS.” Bird seems to recognize the phrase. He glances at Ethan, who only pulls him onward.
The surge of artistic protests points to the existence of a growing underground anti-PACT movement. Bird’s teacher’s exhortations demonstrate how young people are taught early that disruptions and dissidence is undesirable. After all the fuss, the appearance of the graffitied heart would be underwhelming were it not for Bird’s reaction to it, which suggests the kind of recognition which could get him in trouble.
Themes
Bird remembers coming across the phrase “our missing hearts” in the years after Margaret left. He saw it in pamphlets or graffitied in tunnels. Ethan told him it was an anti-PACT slogan, and Bird readily accepted that anyone opposing PACT must be a lunatic, since he had always been taught that PACT kept people safe. When he met Sadie, who had been taken from her parents because they opposed PACT, she tried to get Bird to understand how the law could harm families under the guise of protecting children from un-American ideologies. Bird’s insistence that removals only happened in extreme circumstances caused a fight between them.
Bird’s trust in PACT at a young age illustrates how children are taught to believe that the law is the irrefutable truth. Sadie’s appearance, then, shakes the foundations of what Bird has always been taught to believe. His reaction to Sadie’s insistence that PACT is harmful points to his youth and innocence. It hasn’t yet occurred to him to question his government.
Themes
After their fight, Sadie presented Bird with a newspaper article she had found at the library. The paper attributed the phrase “our missing hearts” to the poet Margaret Miu—Bird’s mother. Sadie took this as confirmation that Bird’s mother was like her parents: an anti-PACT organizer working to overturn the law and bring displaced children home. Bird found this hard to believe, but he wrestled with the idea that his mother cared so much about other children that she left hers behind. Seeing his mother’s words now, painted in the intersection, makes him wonder if she is somewhere nearby.
The newspaper article presents Bird with his first concrete evidence of his mother’s supposedly seditious activities. He does not share Sadie’s enthusiasm for this discovery because, if true, he believes it means Margaret left him because she preferred to help other people’s children instead of her own. Even with these complex feelings, Bird is excited and hopeful to be in close proximity with his mother’s words, if not his mother herself.
Themes
After the disruption at the dining hall, Bird takes a chance and asks Ethan if he has heard from Margaret. Deathly serious, his father reiterates that Bird’s mother is no longer part of their lives. He then critiques the PACT essay Bird is working on, telling Bird he must show his teacher he understands how the law protects children from indoctrination and that the teacher cannot doubt that Bird understands and supports the law. Later, Bird watches through the window as someone paints over the heart in the intersection.
Ethan’s outright refusal to talk about Margaret communicates how deeply he fears attracting the attention of the authorities. The way he nitpicks Bird’s PACT essay emphasizes this point; to Ethan, complying with and wholeheartedly supporting PACT is the only way to keep Bird from being taken away from him, since Margaret’s reputation is already a strike against him. The swiftness with which the graffiti is covered illustrates how the authorities perceive any contrary thought as a threat, necessitating a display of power and control.
Themes
Later, while Ethan sleeps, Bird takes out Margaret’s letter and studies the drawing closely, searching for a secret message. He finds a small rectangle hidden among the cats and realizes it is a miniature cabinet. The image calls him back to the stories his mother once told him—she was a great lover of fairytales. There was one story she used to tell him about a boy who loved cats. But Bird cannot remember anything beyond that, including his mother’s voice.
Bird’s discovery of the cabinet among the cats suggest that Margaret is indeed trying to tell him something that she cannot write for fear of PACT authorities intercepting the message. That this message may refer to a fairytale invokes a sense of imaginative play, as if Bird’s childhood was reaching out to him.
Themes
