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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Bone Sparrow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dehumanization, Invisibility, and Refugee Camps
Childhood
Family and Friendship
Storytelling, Escapism, and Hope
Summary
Analysis
Subhi and the Shakespeare duck are playing a stone-stacking game while they wait for Jimmie. This is the third night they’ve waited, and Subhi is beginning to wonder if Jimmie isn’t coming back. But just as the duck starts to cheer for Subhi, whose tower is almost up to 15 stones, Jimmie appears. She has a Thermos in addition to her book. Subhi knows what a Thermos is because sometimes the Jackets bring Thermoses. It makes Queeny mad when the Jackets drink out of their Thermoses in front of her, but Subhi doesn’t mind: he can use his imagination to turn smells into tastes and pretend he’s drinking, too. Jimmie announces that she brought hot chocolate and then tells the duck a few jokes about ducks. The duck pretends to be just a normal rubber duck.
The duck cheers for Subhi because at the moment, no one else is here to celebrate his success. Subhi is functionally alone now, and so he must manufacture support from his own mind. Subhi’s explanation for why he isn’t bothered by the Jackets’ Thermoses indicates that Subhi likely has never had anything particularly tasty. Good-tasting food exists only in his imagination, and he doesn’t know what he’s missing.
Themes
Then, Jimmie passes Subhi the Thermos. The hot chocolate is so sweet—and before Subhi knows it, he’s gulping it and it’s dripping out of his mouth. Jimmie laughs, takes it back, and tells Subhi to watch as she makes the hot chocolate dribble out of her nose so she can drink it again. She offers to teach Subhi, but there’s no way he’s wasting his hot chocolate like that. Jimmie then asks to give Subhi a tattoo with a pen. She says it’s supposed to be a dragon like the poster in her room, but it looks more like a duck. (The duck is thrilled.) Subhi can’t picture what a bedroom looks like, so he asks Jimmie to describe hers. When she’s done, he asks her to tell him about Outside—everyone in here has stories from far away, but nobody knows what it’s like beyond the fences.
Suddenly, as he tastes the hot chocolate for the first time, Subhi realizes what he’s been missing, and his world begins to open up. Jimmie is like him in a lot of ways, but she’s also fundamentally different: she sleeps in a bedroom and actually knows what it’s like to live in Australia. And more pointedly here, Subhi believes hot chocolate is too precious to waste by making it dribble out his nose while Jimmie doesn’t seem to consider it such a luxury.
Themes
Jimmie is excited as she tells Subhi about Outside. She promises to take Subhi everywhere someday, and Subhi can tell she keeps her promises. Then, Jimmie asks Subhi to give her a tattoo. Subhi draws a picture of his shell from the Night Sea and Eli’s whale swimming in it, and he then tells her Eli’s whale story. Jimmie loves the tattoo and the story. She says it’s time for her mum’s story, so Subhi begins to read.
It remains to be seen whether Subhi is going to get out of the detention center anytime soon, but Jimmie’s promise to show him around gives him hope and the promise of friendship, which he needs now that Eli is gone.
Themes
In the story, Oto and Anka become immediately inseparable. Oto is a lot like an older brother or cousin at first, but their relationship changes as Anka gets older and soon, she’s teaching him. Anka is a remarkable child; even Guntis grudgingly agrees. She often sits on Mirka’s lap and rubs the Bone Sparrow necklace around Mirka’s neck. Everyone in town loves Anka, and the girl has a unique ability to make everyone in her presence feel peaceful. When Anka turns 16, she and Oto announce that they’re getting married. Anka becomes pregnant a few years later. Midway through Anka’s pregnancy, Mirka visits the couple and tells them it’s time to leave this town. But Oto and Anka refuse. They know about the faraway war, but they believe their town is too small and remote to suffer. So the couple still lives in the town when the soldiers come.
Finally, Jimmie’s mum’s story introduces the Bone Sparrow necklace: it was originally Mirka’s, a detail readers should keep in mind for later. The story ends on an ominous cliffhanger, suggesting that Oto, Anka, Mirka, and Guntis will suffer violence in future installments of the story. This sets up the Bone Sparrow necklace as a symbol hope—or, perhaps, as an omen of death.
Themes
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At this point, Jimmie tells Subhi she has to go. Subhi wants to keep reading, but Jimmie says that she wants the stories to last. Subhi gets it—he doesn’t want his ba’s stories to end either. The duck jokes that it’s a good thing, then, that Subhi doesn’t know his ba’s stories, as they can’t end if they never start. Subhi doesn’t find this funny. Jimmie offers Subhi a small flashlight so they can communicate by flashing them at each other. They decide on signals for help and to let Jimmie know if it’s safe to come in. As Jimmie leaves the fences and starts up the hill, she flashes back at Subhi so they can test their range.
As Subhi’s imaginary friend, whatever the duck says actually comes from Subhi—and it’s surprisingly mature and cynical to note what Subhi (through the duck) says here about not knowing his ba’s stories. Subhi is gaining maturity, and the harsh reality, violence, and cruelty of the camps is, perhaps, becoming harder for him to deny. The flashlight and his friendship with Jimmie, though, offer Subhi hope and something positive to cling to.
Themes
