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
Darius wakes up to clanking in the middle of the night and finds Mom in the kitchen, doing dishes in her robe. Darius picks up a towel to dry and remarks on a platter that his family sent Mamou and Babou last year. Mom says it was for their anniversary—and Darius thinks of how they might not reach their 52nd anniversary. He apologizes to Mom about Babou, but Mom apologizes for not bringing Darius and Laleh to meet him until now. She shares an anecdote about when she and Mahvash, Sohrab’s mom, were kids, and they went to the park in the morning. They were barefoot, and it was too hot to walk home by midday. Babou came to find them and carried Mahvash back, leaving Mom to find her own way home as punishment. But he forgot to bring Mom shoes, so he had to carry her home, too.
Darius is an empathetic person. He can tell it’s painful for Mom to see her father in such poor health, and he wants to show her he’s here for her. Mom, though, brushes off Darius’s concern and suggests that the real tragedy here is that Darius is only meeting his grandfather for the first time when Babou is so volatile thanks to the tumor. He isn’t, for instance, ever going to get to meet the Babou that Sohrab has talked about, or the one Mom describes in this story from her childhood. It’s perhaps not surprising, in this context, that Darius struggles to connect to Babou: these days, Babou’s identity is in flux, and this can make him hard to be around.
Themes
Mom sniffles as she says Babou was so strong, and she apologizes for not teaching Darius Farsi. She says she’s failed at teaching Darius where he came from because she wanted him to be American and feel like he belonged. Darius understands, and Mom apologizes again. She says Babou is more comfortable speaking Farsi, and she says Babou does love Darius. Darius says he loves Babou too, but he thinks that might be an exaggeration: he likes Babou as an idea.
Mom also has to confront that she made choices in how to raise Darius, and those choices might not be serving him as well as she hoped they would. She’s essentially made it harder for Darius to fit in in Yazd by not teaching him Farsi, and it seems to pain her that this choice she made is hurting her son. Darius, though, doesn’t hold it against Mom. He loves her and knows she’s trying her best, and in return, he’s figuring out how he feels about Babou.
Themes
Laleh is up early the next morning, and Darius gets up to help her get breakfast. She asks for what she wants in Farsi and when they’re done, they go to the living room. Darius reads The Lord of the Rings, while Laleh turns on a soap opera and switches to English to tell Darius what’s going on. Mamou wakes up a bit later and asks if Darius would make her the tea he brought. She also pulls out a bowl of qottab and winks. When she tries the tea, she says it’s perfect and thanks him.
Throughout this passage, Darius is able to blend his Persian identity with his American one. He understands enough food vocabulary in Farsi to help Laleh, and Mamou is more than willing to give Darius his favorite Persian sweets while also trying the tea from Portland. After Darius’s intense feelings of both fitting in and being unwanted, this is a much-needed reprieve.
Themes
Mom emerges around 10:00 a.m., dressed nicely, and says she and Mamou are going to visit friends. It’s a Nowruz tradition that Darius has never heard of. She suggests Darius go visit Sohrab and draws a map for Darius. Mahvash Rezaei answers and shows Darius in. She offers Darius food, but Darius says he’s eaten and gives her a container of Mamou’s qottab, which Khanum Rezaei insists is the best. She then returns to her bread and asks Darius to take the romaine lettuce leaves in the sink to the table outside. They’re Sohrab’s favorite food—and Sohrab’s dad’s, too. Darius is confused and feels awful for Sohrab.
In Portland, it might not have been as important to Mom to observe the post-Nowruz visiting tradition as it is here. As she explains it to Darius, she lets him in on a new element of Persian culture and helps him understand more where his family comes from. At the Rezaeis’ house, Darius is again confused and lost. It’s beyond him why romaine lettuce is such a delicacy, and it’s also hard to fully grasp how much pain Sohrab must be in due to his dad’s imprisonment.
Themes
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Outside, Darius observes overgrown mint and finds only a Ping-Pong table. Khanum Rezaei appears behind him with a tablecloth and asks him to lay the lettuce out to dry. Just then, Sohrab appears and grabs Darius from behind. He’s still in pajamas, and when he sees the lettuce, he races inside. Somehow, Sohrab looks younger, and Darius can tell he’s missing Sohrab’s dad. But when Sohrab reappears and asks if Darius likes sekanjabin, he looks wildly happy. He explains that it’s mint syrup and shows Darius how to dip lettuce leaves in the jar. It’s very tasty. But it’s surprising when Sohrab says Babou made it, and that Sohrab’s dad used to grow extra mint for Babou. The mint in the garden is overgrown now because Babou hasn’t made it in a while. When they’re done eating, Sohrab gets dressed and leads Darius out the door.
Just as Darius experiences intense ups and downs as he tries to fit in in Yazd, Sohrab also demonstrates that he can feel multiple conflicting emotions at once: grief for his dad, happiness that Darius is here, and excitement to introduce Darius to his favorite food. As Sohrab explains more about the sekanjabin, though, Darius realizes again how little he knows about Babou. Mamou and Babou, Sohrab explains, are very integrated in their community and have close relationships with their neighbors. Now though, with Sohrab’s dad in prison and Babou unwell, those ties are beginning to unravel.
Themes
