Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Milkweed, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Relationships
War, Dehumanization, and Innocence
Ingenuity, Resilience, and Survival
Family
Summary
Analysis
The orphan boys sleep in the rubble with only a braided rug to cover them; they huddle like kittens. Sometimes Uri joins them, but often he’s not there. The boys talk in the night, often about mothers. Ferdi says he doesn’t believe in mothers—real ones, he says, don’t die. They also talk about oranges—like many of the boys, Misha has never tasted one. Ferdi says that oranges don’t exist, either. Misha finds it’s easier to believe in things like mothers and oranges during the day than during the night.
Like angels, mothers and oranges are debatable subjects for the orphan boys—many of them have no more experience of maternal love or fresh fruit than they do of supernatural beings. The closest thing to family that most of the boys have known is the makeshift family they’ve cobbled together with one another.
Themes
During the day, the orphans mostly go their separate ways. None of them have armbands or other identification, and as a group, they’re a target for the ghetto police, known as the Flops. And they’re all hungry—nobody walks down the street with bread, and the few shops are nearly bare. In the outdoor market, horse and dog meat are sold. There are also “squirrels” for sale, but it becomes apparent that the small roasted animals aren’t squirrels at all, but rats.
Inside the ghetto, survival becomes an entirely different matter than what Misha has known before. There are opponents and obstacles he hasn’t had to deal with before (the Flops), and unlike the streets of the city, there’s nobody to steal from, because nobody has anything. Misha will once again need to adapt and find new modes of survival.
Themes
One day, Misha snatches an extra roasted rat and takes it to the Milgroms’ apartment. Uncle Shepsel greedily takes half, and Janina saves the other half to share with her parents. But when they get home, Mr. Milgrom and Mrs. Milgrom refuse to eat rat—not yet. Janina starts to cry and gives the remaining half to Uncle Shepsel.
Besides the fact that a rat would probably be considered unclean according to religious food laws, eating a rat also seems to symbolize a lowering of standards that the Milgroms aren’t ready to accept yet. They’re holding onto their dignity as best they can in an environment that’s trying to diminish it in every possible way.
Themes
The next day, Misha walks along the ghetto wall, searching. Finally, he spots a gap in the bricks: it’s only two bricks wide, a drainage hole, and he realizes it has never occurred to anyone that a person could fit through. He returns after dark and easily squeezes through the gap.
Prompted by his friends’ hunger and driven by his unflappable kindness, Misha once again uses his ingenuity to find a way out of a situation—and again, he shows how kindness can . Used to going unnoticed, he finds a route that has gone overlooked by everyone else.
Themes
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