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Chapter 35
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
There are Outside people here to ask questions about “the craziness.” When a woman named Sarah asks to talk to Subhi, Subhi stares at her. His brain is screaming, and he can see Harvey watching. Subhi already misses Harvey, but he looks at Sarah and whispers that once, there was a Limbo kid named Eli who “had something important to do.” Harvey’s eyes are sad, and a tear rolls down his cheek. But Harvey nods like he understands. Subhi never sees him again.
Harvey seems to give Subhi permission to tell Sarah the truth about Eli’s murder. In this way, he does the last, and perhaps only, thing he can do for either Eli or Subhi: formally accept his role in Eli’s death and allow Subhi to begin the difficult process of memorializing Eli and then beginning to heal.
Themes
Picking up Oto and Anka’s story, Iliya doesn’t die when the land mine explodes. Rather, villagers rescue him and take him to an English doctor at an aid station. The doctor is so impressed with Iliya’s healing concoction that the two agree to work together. They save lots of people and, years later, Iliya arrives in Burma. He falls in love with a Rohingya woman and becomes a hero to the locals. His children and grandchildren are farmers and healers, and though they’ve always lived in Burma, the government refuses to acknowledge their existence. Burma becomes Myanmar, and the government says Rohingya people don’t exist. Many people are killed or tortured, while many others leave. People worldwide seem to forget that the Rohingya people exist. Iliya, though, knows none of this. He just feels lucky, perhaps because he ended up with the Bone Sparrow’s green coin.
This passage offers readers a brief overview of the history of the Rohingya people—most notably, that they’ve lived in Burma (now Myanmar) for generations, and yet the government refuses to acknowledge their existence. This, in turn, has led to violence against the Rohingya people on a scale that some international organizations and governments call genocide. The other important detail here is that Iliya ended up with the Bone Sparrow’s green coin—a coin that seems to closely resemble Subhi’s green coin. This implies that Jimmie and Subhi are more connected than they realize. Further, the difference in how Australia treats them seems to have more to do with when their families arrived in the country than with anything else.
Themes
