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
These are good times for Stopthief and Uri: their icebox is full of food. They eat candy all day—Stopthief’s favorite is a chocolate buttercream with a hazelnut inside. Uri, meanwhile, is obsessed with fresh pickles. They both become experts at stealing their favorites—Uri from store shelves and Stopthief from people on the street. Uri is impressed by Stopthief’s talent for thieving.
Stopthief and Uri continue life as usual for now, showing their resilience through their ability to steal the things they like best. Stopthief has an unusual aptitude for stealing that impresses even the older, more experienced Uri.
Themes
One day, Stopthief defies Uri’s order to stay put and goes out thieving. He steals a box of cream puffs from a lady and then collides with one of the kids from the stable—Olek, a one-armed boy—as he’s running away. Olek just stole some cherry turnovers; the two fling pastry filling at each other. After a Jackboot disrupts the boys’ food fight, Stopthief runs and finds himself in someone’s backyard garden, where two ripe tomatoes are dangling from a vine. As he sits down to eat one, he notices a little girl with curly hair and huge brown eyes watching him. She doesn’t say anything. Stopthief looks over his shoulder at her as he walks away. The girl’s gaze makes him feel visible for the first time.
The little girl’s gaze, seeming to accept Stopthief for who he is, marks the first time Stopthief has felt acknowledged by somebody from outside of his own world. In the past, Stopthief’s relationships with other people—especially those who aren’t street orphans like himself—have mainly been a relationship between thief and victim. Though he’s stealing from the girl too, this somehow feels different.
Themes
One day, Uri gives Stopthief a name and a history, naming him Misha Pilsudski. Misha, Uri says, was born into a family of Russian “Gypsies.” His family, including two great-grandfathers and a great-great-grandmother who was 109, traveled in a big wagon caravan. His father traded horses, and his mother was a fortune teller. Misha had seven brothers and five sisters, and his favorite horse was a speckled mare named Greta.
Even though Uri’s story is completely invented, it’s the first time Stopthief has had a family and a past—even an imaginary one. The Roma people (here called “Gypsies,” a term that’s considered a slur today) often did travel in caravans, engaging in trades like horse dealing. Though somewhat fantastical, Uri’s narrative is just realistic enough to be believed.
Themes
When Misha’s family came to Poland, Uri goes on, their caravan was bombed by a Jackboot plane. The wagons scattered. One day, some Polish farmers who hated “Gypsies” kidnapped Misha and Greta. They forced Misha to work as their slave, until one day Misha escaped and fled to Warsaw, where he stole food on the streets in order to survive.
Uri provides a background story for how Stopthief—who will be called “Misha” from now on—wound up on the streets of Warsaw. The disdain of society for the Roma people is one element that rings true in Uri’s account.
Themes
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Thanks to Uri, Stopthief—now Misha—feels as though he is born for the first time in the autumn of 1939. He asks Uri about his yellow stone necklace, and Uri replies that it was a gift from Misha’s father. Misha loves Uri’s story and feels that he becomes the story. He stares at himself in the mirror and repeats his new name to himself. Soon, he wants to tell someone else his story.
Until now, Stopthief has always been identified by what he does—running and stealing. Now, for the first time, he has a story to call his own. For now, it doesn’t matter to Misha that the story is fictional, as it gives him a sense of identity for the first time. His desire to tell his story suggests that a sense of identity is an important basis for connecting with others.
Themes
