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Chapter 15
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
Queeny and Eli are talking over by the fence, which makes Subhi angry. Things are different now that Eli is in Alpha, since Eli is always busy talking about things with the men over there that he insists are “nothing.” Subhi knows Eli needs to make friends, but Subhi misses him. He still hasn’t been able to tell Eli about Jimmie, in part because it doesn’t seem like Eli really listens anymore. Now, Subhi approaches the fence and Queeny shoves something in her pocket. Eli tells Queeny to show Subhi. After threatening Subhi, Queeny pulls out a camera. Subhi has seen a camera before, when the newspaper came to take a photo of the camp. For a while after the photo was published, Outside people sent stuff—and then Jackets started returning packages. Now, Queeny is trying to hide the camera.
Subhi is angry because he sees Queeny and Eli forming a relationship with each other—when Subhi desperately wants his friendship with Eli to go back to the way it was. The camera, combined with the supposed “nothing” that Eli is involved with in Alpha, suggests that Queeny and Eli are planning something—something they’re only now ready to share with Subhi, albeit unwillingly. They perhaps see him as too young to understand their purpose.
Themes
Eli says that people Outside need to learn the truth, and this camera sends pictures right to people’s computers. All Eli has to do is get into the computer room, which is tricky, but he’s doing it. When Subhi doesn’t react enthusiastically, Queeny says this will make sure people remember them—in here, it’s like they don’t exist. Subhi notes that they’ll get thrown in Beta if they’re caught, but Eli says they’ll be fine, and Queeny snaps that Subhi doesn’t get it—he needs to grow up and see what’s happening. Eli tells her to leave Subhi alone, but he doesn’t tell her she’s wrong. Subhi leaves the fence, and Queeny and Eli resume their conversation.
Queeny and Eli want to force people outside the detention centers—people who might be able to help—to acknowledge that there are people living in the centers who are essentially stuck in time. As a young child who was born here, Subhi doesn’t entirely get it. Just as he didn’t know what he was missing until Jimmie shared her hot chocolate with him, Subhi has never been outside a fence and doesn’t have any real idea of what it’s like to live anywhere other than a refugee camp.
Themes
Queeny used to be nice. She taught Subhi how to read after the Jackets stopped bringing a teacher here and stopped sending a few kids to school Outside. Back then, Queeny “looked forward.” She’d play then and teach Subhi how to ride donkeys and climb trees, even though there aren’t any donkeys or trees in here. She’d make tiny toy people out of trash, and they’d choose one to be Ba. Back then, Subhi didn’t understand that the people here aren’t wanted in Burma, here, or anywhere else. He thought they were just waiting for Ba. Then Queeny started saying that the people here are “the dead rats they leave out to stop other rats from coming,” which never made sense to Subhi since the dead rats never deter the living ones. Why would it work on people? In any case, he never expected Queeny to look forward like this.
As Subhi sees it, Queeny used to look to the future, and her willingness to play imaginative games and teach Subhi important skills like tree-climbing and donkey-riding supported that. Something, however, caused her to suddenly stop looking forward and to believe that people see her and others in the center as vermin to be exterminated. This is offensive to Subhi, not least because the rats are his friends, but also because life in the center is so normal to him. So, it’s uncomfortable to realize that Queeny is looking forward to a future outside of the center, especially as she’s doing it in a way that Subhi knows could get her in serious trouble.
Themes
