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Chapter 22
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 can’t stop thinking about the feast, and he just laughs when Harvey asks about the duck tattoo on his arm. Subhi sits next to Maá and draws a picture of Anka’s birth for Jimmie. This way, Jimmie can remember the story even though she can’t read it. Sometimes, the elderly people in the camp ask Subhi to draw their stories or memories for them. Queeny scoffs that they do this to get Subhi to be quiet, but she doesn’t get it. Subhi has only ever known this camp, so he needs others’ stories so he can make his memories of the world beyond the camp. Harvey always says that Subhi’s drawings for the old folks is like giving them blankets to wrap themselves in. Subhi figures that every story people tell contributes to one giant blanket that will one day cover the world and keep everyone warm.
Both Subhi and Harvey understand the importance of stories and of memories. Memories, Harvey suggests, can give people in difficult circumstances something happy to cling to, reminding them that life hasn’t always been so bad. And for someone like Subhi, who has only ever known the refugee camp, others’ stories are educational and connect him to his heritage.
Themes
Queeny storms into the tent and knocks into Subhi, making his line wiggle. She accuses him of telling Harvey about the camera and snatches his drawing. Subhi does his best to keep calm, but she angrily says that “[a]t least what [she’s] doing is real.” Suddenly, Subhi is telling her about Jimmie and how brave Jimmie is, but Queeny isn’t listening. The duck observes that Subhi does, in fact, have a big mouth, just as Queeny says she’s tired of Subhi’s stories. She begins to rip up Subhi’s picture and then destroy the rest of Subhi’s sketchbook, stomping on the paper scraps. Subhi covers his ears and before he knows it, he's banging his head on the ground like he used to when he was little. He stopped because it upset Maá, even though it worked to quiet his thoughts.
Fortunately for Subhi, Queeny seems to think that Subhi is just telling her a fictional story when he begins talking about Jimmie. It’s implied that the Jackets found and confiscated Queeny’s camera, which means she won’t be able to let people Outside know what’s happening in the camp anymore. Queeny is jaded and cynical, which is why she insists that taking photographs is “real” while Subhi’s stories and drawings are not. She’s no longer able to see the value in stories—even though her pictures tell stories of their own, albeit real, tragic ones.
Themes
Subhi tells Queeny he wouldn’t hurt her or Eli by telling, and then he walks fences until he calms down. He finds himself in his and Jimmie’s corner and pretends that everything is okay—that Queeny isn’t mad, that Maá isn’t asleep, that Eli is in Family, and that men aren’t sewing their lips shut. He remembers how he and Eli used to sit here before Eli got too big to fit. Now, Eli is over with the men with their lips sewn shut. One man passed out yesterday, and Harvey assured Subhi that they were going to give him food and water through an IV and the man would be fine. Subhi digs his fingers into the dirt so that his fingers hurt, which distracts his brain.
Everything in Subhi’s life seems to be going wrong, and he’s totally without support right now. Symbolically, the fact that Eli no longer fits in Subhi and Jimmie’s corner suggests that while all three characters (and Queeny) are technically still children, both Queeny and Eli are functionally adults now. It’s worth noting that international medical ethics guidelines state that doctors should not participate in force-feeding (which sometimes includes IV nutrients) if doing so is simply going to revive hunger strikers enough to return them to their “torture”; sometimes, the guidelines acknowledge, the force-feeding itself is part of the torture. There’s some wiggle room if doctors believe strikers don’t genuinely want to die for their cause, though guidelines still suggest that reviving strikers likely contributes to whatever bad circumstances strikers are protesting. It’s thus possible that the camps are violating ethical guidelines in how they’re dealing with the strike, even as Harvey assures Subhi that the doctors are doing the right thing.
Themes
The dirt here is soft. Without thinking, Subhi digs his fingers into the dirt until he finds a “treasure.” He thinks he should leave it alone, but he keeps digging. It’s not a good treasure that makes people happy—it’s a sharp knife. Subhi stares at it for a long time. When the curfew bell rings, he wraps it in his shirt. He considers telling Harvey, but that might get someone sent back to where they came from. Subhi has seen what people do when they’re learn they’re being sent back—maybe that’s what this knife is for. He’s certain the knife will just cause trouble, so he decides to bury it somewhere else. That way, he figures, nobody will get hurt.
Subhi knows he doesn’t know the full story behind this buried knife, but he also doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. Still, though his intentions are good, his youth and immaturity continue to shine through: it seems almost certain that something bad is going to come of the hunger strike and of Subhi moving the knife.
Themes
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