Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Darius the Great Is Not Okay, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
Family
Persian Identity and Culture
Mental Health, Depression, and Connection
Bullying
Summary
Analysis
Sohrab and Khanum Rezaei come for breakfast the next morning. While Laleh chatters at Sohrab about Star Trek, Darius takes his pills—he doesn’t want Sohrab to see him do it, since it somehow feels more intimate than being naked in front of him. Then, everyone gets ready to go to Dowlatabad. There’s a Dowlatabad everywhere (it’s like Springfield in the United States), but in Yazd, it’s just a garden and mansion. Darius and Sohrab follow the adults and Laleh in comfortable silence. Darius is chilly, but he’s glad he’s wearing the soccer jersey—it makes him feel very Persian. Sohrab asks when they’re going to play soccer again and says they don’t have to play with Ali-Reza and Hossein. Darius says they can play and agrees to go out later. Sohrab tells Darius he’s good, and he should play on his school’s team when he gets home.
Though Dad goes out of his way to make Darius feel like his depression is nothing to be ashamed of (and, for that matter, Sohrab has never made Darius feel bad for having depression), this passage suggests that Darius nevertheless feels some degree of shame. Still, Darius is able to move past this and feel like he fits in thanks to the soccer jersey from Sohrab. The jersey, then, comes to represent Darius’s changing identity: he’s trying out a version of himself who is very Persian and who plays soccer. This is then why Darius agrees to play with Sohrab again. Further, he trusts Sohrab to stand up for him against Ali-Reza and Hossein, should the boys try to tease him again.
Themes
As they reach a fountain, Sohrab says Sohrab’s dad used to love coming here. Darius asks if Sohrab gets to visit his dad much. They sit and after some time, Sohrab explains that they used to get to see his dad once a month. He was in the Yazd prison, but four years ago, he was transferred to an awful prison in Tehran. Now he's in solitary confinement. Darius feels awful. He can’t make it better, and he wonders if all Persian boys have “Father Issues.” He apologizes, and Sohrab asks in a whisper what will happen if he never sees his dad again. A few tears fall from his eyes. Darius feels helpless. All he can do is be Sohrab’s friend, but maybe that’s enough. After a minute, Sohrab gets up and says he wants to show Darius more of Dowlatabad.
Darius has no idea what the Iranian prison system is like—and from Sohrab, he learns that it’s extremely dehumanizing and punishes both the imprisoned and prisoners’ families on the outside. That Sohrab is willing to confide in Darius and even cry in front of him, though, speaks to the growing strength of their friendship: Sohrab, like Darius, is opening up and enjoying another person’s support. And Darius begins to think that friendship itself is enough to make horrible things (like one’s dad’s imprisonment) easier to bear.
Themes
