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
As the wider world returns to normal, Misha slowly learns how to function in mainstream society. But before long, he starts stealing things in the countryside and selling them for cheap prices. He also discovers his voice, which becomes more important to him than selling. He hawks just to hear himself speak. He loves the fact that words are free for the taking.
Misha defaults to stealing rather than making a mainstream living, because it’s what comes most naturally to him. But he discovers that there’s more to surviving than material sustenance. He’s usually relied on other people to determine or shape his story; now, he wants to tell it himself.
Themes
Eventually, Misha saves up enough money to buy a ticket to America. The immigration officer doesn’t recognize the name Misha, so he renames him Jack Milgrom. Misha learns English and takes jobs as a salesman. Between his accent, his mangled ear, and his small size, he can’t get the best jobs as a traveling salesman. Instead, he sells things like vegetable choppers on the Atlantic City boardwalk. He’s no good at selling, but he finds himself blurting out stories from the ghetto—stories about Himmler, burning cows, and merry-go-rounds. Every once in a while, someone stops to listen.
In America, Misha gets renamed once again and struggles to function within a world that doesn’t have an obvious place for him. Telling stories about his survival in the ghetto becomes a way of coming to terms with those memories. Just as he once longed to tell Janina about his made-up history, now he longs to tell the truth about his past to whomever will listen—and even to those who won’t.
Themes
Misha ends up fired from his sales job, but he returns to the boardwalk the next day. He keeps talking. He ends up traveling to Philadelphia, taking menial jobs so that he can keep up his real job, “running [his] mouth.” Most people write Misha off as crazy. But then, one cold November day, a woman named Vivian stops and listens to him on a street corner. Soon, she comes every day and starts taking Misha to lunch or to her apartment. Finally, she says that she’ll marry him, though Misha isn’t sure he ever asked.
Misha’s compulsive storytelling does enable him to form new bonds with other people. Some stop to listen, value his stories, and even validate him. Misha is even given the opportunity to start a new family with Vivian, which looks like a promising resolution to his wandering life.
Themes
The marriage only lasts for five months. Living with Misha is difficult: he slams the door on caroling children, takes cold showers until he’s blue, steals fruit, has nightmares, and laughs and cries at inappropriate times. When Vivian finally leaves, Misha suspects that she’s pregnant.
It turns out that a bond founded upon Misha’s stories can’t necessarily be sustained that way. Misha’s worst memories of the war (like starving, singing children, people being tormented by frigid water, and other traumatic events) overshadow his ability to maintain relationships with people who didn’t share such conditions.
Themes
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Misha goes back to talking on street corners, spilling stories about everything that happened to him in Warsaw, often making little sense. He refers to his audience as “the thing that gave me shape.” It doesn’t matter if they didn’t listen—the point is that he talks. It’s was how he copes. He needs people, even if they didn’t listen to his experiences.
Somehow, telling stories is what enables Misha to survive. He knows that other people can’t really understand, but recounting his experiences “gives him shape,” helping him make sense of his identity. After a lifetime of having his story determined by others, Misha needs to tell his own.
Themes
One day, outside City Hall in Philadelphia, two ladies in their seventies stop to listen to Misha. After a while, one of them reaches out and touches his ear. She smiles at him and says, “We hear you. It’s enough. It’s over.” After that, Misha never talks on another street corner.
In a way, understanding isn’t what Misha seems to need most—he just needs to be heard. The detail about the ladies’ age suggests wisdom, meaning that they may understand World War II and empathize with Misha’s experiences on a deeper level than younger people do. In any case, their affirmation sets Misha free from the need to keep talking.
Themes
