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Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Foreign Soil, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Place
The Limitations of Hope
Communication and Misunderstanding
Solidarity vs. Prejudice
Summary
Analysis
Avery hangs from the monkey bars. Underneath her school uniform, her black bloomers are tight around her waist. Avery told Avery’s dad she needs new ones, but when they arrived at Target and found the place buzzing with families, he froze, gave Avery some money, and told her to find some lady inside to help her. Avery is only seven—far too young to buy sports knickers from a store by herself. But she went inside anyway. She waited around awhile, then came back out and told her dad they were out of knickers.
Seeing families in Target was triggering for Avery’s father, for some reason—perhaps this is because Avery’s mother isn’t in the picture. Whatever the exact case, it’s clear that Avery’s dad isn’t communicating his thoughts and feelings with his daughter. This leaves Avery, who’s just a young child, alone and vulnerable.
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Now, on the monkey bars, Avery feels faint. Her knees are sore, her arms feel like they’re about to fall off, and her back has started to itch. Avery tries to wiggle away the itch, but it doesn’t work. And then she realizes that she doesn’t know how to get down from the monkey bars.
Like many of the book’s immigrant and minority characters, Avery, as she realizes she doesn’t know how to get down from the monkey bars, finds herself alone and lacking in support—on metaphorical “foreign soil.”
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Down the hallway from the narrator’s (the unnamed writer) bedroom, the narrator’s kid watches a silly kids’ show on TV. The narrator knows they should be glad her kids aren’t that loud. Then the narrator walks toward their bed and climbs on top of the quilt. They look out the window at the Melbourne skyline. Maryam, the narrator’s daughter, asked the narrator if they could take the window with them when they leave; Maryam is only three but has lived in four places so far.
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Below the apartment, Irving Street is abuzz with commuters. The narrator (the unnamed writer) looks out the window and sees an old Vietnamese man playing a violin outside the Vietnamese bakery and the Ethiopian coffeehouse. The narrator opens the window so they can hear. They recognize the music: it's a Japanese song called “Ue o Muite Arukou,” or “I Shall Walk Looking Up.” It’s about keeping your head held high and moving past sadness. The narrator’s son’s (Markie) class performed the song at school last year, and the teacher had them sing it in an upbeat style. The teacher also gave the song the name “Sukiyaki,” which was easier for Western audiences to pronounce. Even after Markie researched the song, the teacher still insisted on singing the song in a happy style.
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Meanwhile, back on the playground, Avery is still stuck on the monkey bars. She’s so desperate to get down that she wouldn’t even mind if the mean principal, Ms. Lothian, were to be the one to find her. Ms. Lothian is as mean as the principal in Matilda. Avery’s mum gave her the Roald Dahl book the day of the accident. Avery was about to read it when they entered the roundabout. When Avery woke up after the crash, she found the book beside her hospital bed. Now, Avery wishes she could use magic to move things with her brain like Matilda.
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Back at the apartment, the narrator (the unnamed writer) stares out the window at the evening traffic. The rumbling sound of a passing train shakes the bedroom floor and walls. The narrator, a single mother and freelance writer with two kids, thought this place would be temporary. But it’s been a year already, and they’re still here. Markie appears in the door and announces that he hates the captain of the 5:36 Watergardens to City train. The narrator says that finding someone annoying is different from hating them. Markie starts to protest, but the 5:41 train arrives and drowns out his words. Markie always closes his eyes for a few seconds to block out the flash of a passing train. Last winter, his teacher suggested that his hearing was bad. But the unnamed writer knows that the real problem isn’t his hearing—it’s where he lives.
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Meanwhile, Avery continues to struggle on the monkey bars. She’s terrified that she might fall. She saw Avery’s dad crack his head open at Avery’s mum’s funeral. He’d had too much to drink and was walking and talking funny. He slipped in the kitchen, and there’s still a dent where his head hit the fridge.
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The unnamed writer is worried for Avery. She imagines a strange man approaching Avery and harming her. The writer then redirects her attention toward her laptop screen, on which she is typing Avery’s story. The narrator keeps printouts of rejection e-mails from publishing houses beside her bed. A lot of them say they like her writing but request that she submit material about a different subject—something “with more everyday themes,” or something “that has an uplifting quality.” One publishing house thought that “Harlem Jones” was very good—but instead of ending it with him throwing the Molotov, they suggested it would be better for him to return to “the straight and narrow” and move past his anger.
The unnamed writer considers that Avery’s story was supposed to be about love. Just then, Markie runs in, interrupting the writer’s thoughts. She follows Markie out to the living room, where Maryam is watching Giggle and Hoot. Markie tries to make his sister change the channel, but Maryam refuses.
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Back on the playground, Avery is crying on the monkey bars. The other kids didn’t mean to leave her there after recess—they just didn’t realize she was there. Everything changed so quickly for her, and she never even thought to cry out for help. Sometimes, Avery’s dad doesn’t even register that she exists. A few weeks ago, Avery’s next-door neighbor told her she looks just like Avery’s mum—and that’s why Avery’s dad can’t stand to look at Avery. Avery wishes that the neighbor was here now to help her.
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Meanwhile, the unnamed writer ushers Markie and Maryam toward the apartment’s miniscule bathroom for shower time, promising that the first one in gets ice cream. On hearing this, both kids sprint toward the bathroom. Markie leaps into the shower with some of his clothes still on. The writer’s children shower. Markie sings Duke Ellington in the shower; the lyrics are “about the soul of the music, the uselessness of a melody without a soul.” Maryam joins him in singing. The writer hears Markie dancing around in the shower and worries that he’ll slip and fall. But now both children are singing and dancing under the water. The writer watches them from the hallway and marvels at their unabashed happiness.
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Avery can’t hold on much longer and prepares to fall. But as she slips toward the ground, her body instinctively flips, and she somersaults in the air and lands right-side up, just like the Olympic gymnasts that she Avery’s mum watched on TV. Avery freezes, shocked. She can’t believe she’s okay. She laughs, and then she runs off toward her classroom.
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