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
Babou yells for Mamou to get him some hairpins, and she pins Darius’s hair up so the white cap fits over his curls. Babou then tells Darius he looks nice, but Darius doesn’t believe it—he feels like an imposter or a tourist, just pretending to be a good Zoroastrian grandson. But then, Babou looks Darius in the eye and says he’s glad Darius is here to see this. Darius wonders if maybe, this is something he and Babou can share—it could be their Star Trek. The family is going to Yazd’s Zoroastrian Fire Temple, the Atashkadeh. It’s only used for special celebrations, but there’s a fire burning in it all the time. It’s been burning for 1,500 years. Everyone is dressed in light-colored clothes, and even Dad, who’s a secular humanist, dressed up.
Darius still wants to connect with Babou and come up with something to share with his grandfather. That, he seems to believe, will strengthen their relationship and help Darius learn to love Babou more. Visiting the Atashkadeh in general will also connect Darius more to his heritage and to his family, both those still alive and his deceased ancestors. Still, Darius continues to feel like he doesn’t entirely fit in. He isn’t, after all, Zoroastrian, and he doesn’t fully understand the religion.
Themes
When they get to the Atashkadeh, Mamou lets Darius and Laleh out of the car and then gets back in, explaining that Babou isn’t feeling well so she’s staying behind with him. Darius knows it must be bad if Babou isn’t going to go in, since Babou was so excited to come. But Mom leads the family into the temple and shows them where to take their shoes off. Inside, tinted glass separates people from a bronze chalice holding the fire. How many times has Babou seen the flames, and how many other Bahramis have stood where Darius stands now? Darius feels his family’s ghosts swirling around him. Soon, Babou will be a ghost, too.
Babou sitting behind in the car lets the rest of the family emotionally prepare for the day when Babou is gone for good and won’t accompany them again—they’ll all have to move forward without him. This is a sobering experience for Darius, and despite his earlier reservations, it does seem to connect him emotionally to his family and his history. He’s learning that it perhaps doesn’t matter so much that he’s American and doesn’t speak much Farsi. He can still feel connected to his family and culture.
Themes
When they get home, Babou goes to bed. Darius finds Mom in the sunroom, flipping through photo albums. She invites Darius to sit with her. The album is open to photos of her in the U.S.—and Darius is shocked to see pictures of Dad, looking like a stereotypical hippie with a ponytail and scruffy beard. Smirking, Mom says Dad cut it to please Babou, but it’d be so funny if he had long hair in their wedding pictures—Dad wouldn’t be able to live it down.
Seeing the photos of Dad with long hair and a scruffy beard adds more credence to the possibility that Darius doesn’t know everything there is to know about Dad. It’s also significant that Dad had long hair, just as Darius does now—so Dad’s insistence that Darius cut his hair likely has more to do with Dad himself than it does with Darius.
Themes
A few pages later, Darius studies a photo of Dad on the couch holding tiny baby Laleh. Darius comments that Laleh was so little, but Mom says the baby is actually Darius. This is hard to believe, as Dad looks so content. Darius wishes they could go back to that time, when they could be a father and son all the time, instead of just for the length of a Star Trek episode. They can’t even do that these days. Mom says that she loves this photo and that Dad could always get Darius to fall asleep. Her voice wavering, she says it’s clear Dad loved being a dad. Darius hugs her and apologizes.
Given how fraught Darius and Dad’s relationship is in the present, it’s inconceivable to Darius that Dad once loved him unconditionally. This speaks to just how distanced from Dad Darius feels at present: it seems like they’ll never get back to this happy time, when it was nice just to be in each other’s company. Darius also gets a look here at what his difficult relationship with Dad is doing to Mom. It pains her, even if it’s not her fault or anything she can fix.
Themes
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