Eleanor and Park: Chapter 22 Summary & Analysis

The next morning on the bus, Eleanor is saddened when Park hardly even looks at her—and doesn’t hold her hand. Eleanor tugs at the edge of Park’s t-shirt and asks if he’s mad at her. He says that he is, because she “decided to leave [his] house as soon as [she] walked in.” Eleanor admits that she felt out of place at Park’s house, and was worried he didn’t want her there. Park doesn’t immediately tell Eleanor she’s wrong, and she realizes that she’s “at least a little bit right.” Park is about to say something back, but Eleanor is distracted when the kids at the back of the bus—all dressed in red to celebrate a big University of Nebraska football game later that day—begin chanting “Go. Big. Red.”

When the bus pulls up at school, Park is seething mad, and begins approaching Steve, the originator of the chant, and all his buddies. Eleanor holds him back, but Park says he’s tired of the popular kids embarrassing Eleanor. Eleanor asks if what Park really means to say is that he’s sick of them embarrassing him. Eleanor begs Park not to get into a fight on her behalf, but when Steve calls out another taunt, Park flies at him. Eleanor is surprised to see fight hold his own even against the giant Steve, and eventually let loose a taekwondo kick that leaves Steve bleeding from the mouth. As teachers arrive to break up the fight, a still-furious Park warns Steve to leave “[his] girlfriend” alone.

As teachers drag Park and Steve away to be disciplined, Eleanor is stunned and unsure of how she should feel—proud, worried, or embarrassed herself. As the day goes by, Eleanor grows increasingly worried about Park, as he isn’t in either of their shared classes or on the bus after school, and neither is Steve. All day, though, Eleanor notices that kids throughout school are comparing Park’s fighting skills to David Carradine and Chuck Norris. At the end of the school day, Eleanor gets off the bus at Park’s stop to go visit him.

The narrative switches to Park’s point of view. After the fight, he is suspended for two days. Park’s mother is so angry that his father has to come pick him up from school; Jamie is shocked to see Park with a black eye and a broken nose. On the way home, though, Jamie asks Park all about the fight—and what taekwondo moves he used—and the two of them have a rare moment of bonding. Back at home, though, Mindy is so irate that she calls Park a “white-trash monkey” and grounds him until further notice.

The narrative switches to Eleanor’s point of view as she rings the doorbell at Park’s house after school. Park’s imposing father, Jamie—who looks like Tom Selleck’s character on Magnum, P.I.—answers the door. She has some of Park’s assignments from school to drop off, so Jamie lets her in to see Park. Eleanor heads up to Park’s room and quietly opens the door. He is lying in bed, and his face is swollen and discolored. Eleanor rushes over to sit with Park, feeling a pang of sadness and guilt. As she touches Park’s face, Park says he’s worried that he’s ruined things between them—Eleanor retorts that the only thing Park has ruined is his face. Eleanor urges Park not to get into another fight on her behalf ever again—she promises that as long as Park likes her, it doesn’t matter to her what anyone else thinks.

The next day on the bus, no one bothers Eleanor or makes fun of her at all—though after gym class, she finds another lewd message (“pop that cherry”) scrawled on her textbook cover. Eleanor rips the whole thing off in anger.

That afternoon, back at the house, Eleanor is surprised to find two new pairs of jeans folded on her bed—her mother has been to Goodwill. The jeans are a little baggy, but they’re less threadbare than her other pairs. Eleanor marvels at her mother’s ability to find and spend money in secret—she thinks it’s as if her mother is “keeping them all alive behind [Richie’s] back.”