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75. Chivalry
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in With the Fire on High, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age and Teen Parenthood
Creativity vs. Professional Norms
Food and Connection
Caregiving, Independence, and Identity
Support, Community, and Mentorship
Summary
Analysis
There are only three more days of school before winter break, and Emoni is busy and distracted. This causes her to break the biggest rule at Schomburg Charter: she gets caught with her phone. The security guard, who’s clearly new, takes it from her while Emoni is trying to remind ’Buela that she’s going shopping later. Almost laughing, Emoni tells the guard she has a child and needs her phone, but he insists on taking it. Since the office staff usually side with the guards, Emoni will have to wait until tomorrow.
Emoni’s more adult status as a parent collides here with the fact that she is technically just a kid. Realistically, it doesn’t make total sense that a student who’s also a parent can’t use their phone to coordinate childcare. But because Emoni is a student who has no choice but to follow school rules (or try not to get caught breaking them), she’s forced to step back into a more childlike role.
Themes
Emoni picks up groceries on her way home, but when she gets home, ’Buela and Babygirl aren’t there. Emoni is worried; she hopes ’Buela didn’t see the doctor again today, and she plans to sit ’Buela down to try to ask what’s going on. Something is clearly wrong with ’Buela. Emoni tidies anxiously and decides that something must be wrong. Finally, the phone rings. It’s Mrs. Palmer, Tyrone’s mom. She huffily explains that Babygirl has a fever; the daycare couldn’t get ahold of Emoni or ’Buela, so they called Tyrone. Mrs. Palmer has Babygirl now, and she asks to speak to ’Buela (she always treats Emoni like Emoni is too young to care for her own kid). Emoni offers to come get Babygirl, but Mrs. Palmer says she’ll drive Babygirl over.
The events in this passage drive home how stuck Emoni is, as a teenager subject to school rules who’s also a parent. Since her phone got taken away, she had no way to know that Babygirl was ill—and ’Buela is mysteriously absent. Now, Emoni has to face the consequences in the form of Mrs. Palmer’s scolding. Mrs. Palmer, it seems, has no interest in treating Emoni like the young adult she is. Rather, she sees Emoni as immature and irresponsible and ’Buela as the real parent in the situation.
Themes
