Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Beloved World, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Optimism, Determination, and Adversity
Family and Friendship
Education and Learning
Puerto Rican Identity and Culture
Morality, Justice, and Giving Back
Summary
Analysis
Every week, Abuelita sends Sonia a dollar wrapped in a napkin. Kevin’s visits from SUNY at Stony Brook every weekend, armed with care packages from Mami. Dolores offers to sleep in a friend’s room when Kevin is there, but later, Sonia learns that Dolores thought she was very wild. In reality, Sonia is anything but—she and Kevin study all weekend. Mami visits a few times with Junior, Kevin, and cousins.
For both Kevin and Sonia, what matters most is school, though their devotion to each other is still obvious. Similarly, Mami’s visits with Junior are a way to show Sonia that she cares and will always be there to support her, no matter where she goes.
Themes
When Sonia goes home for her midterm break, Mami is in a panic. She’s in the final stage of her nursing degree and has to write a paper in English—and she tries to force Sonia to write it. Sonia compromises by editing the paper. As Mami becomes more and more hysterical, Sonia and Mami make a bet: if Mami passes and Sonia wins the bet, Mami will buy her a ticket to Puerto Rico. Sonia wins. Later that semester, Abuelita’s envelopes stop. Sonia calls home and learns that Abuelita is in the hospital with advanced ovarian cancer. Mami convinces Sonia to stay at school until the end of the term. On Christmas Eve, the crowd at the hospital vanishes and Sonia and a cousin decide to fetch Abuelita a Christmas tree. They reminisce the entire walk about Abuelita.
Even as Sonia busies herself with school, her connections to her family in the Bronx remain. It’s still a priority for her to see Mami succeed and earn her nursing certification, and Sonia’s close connection with Abuelita means that she feels as though she can’t leave Abuelita alone at Christmas. In particular, it’s telling that Mami works so hard to earn this degree. It begins to suggest that Sonia’s tenacity and drive might not have just been the result of a fraught and anxious childhood—she may have learned this dedication in part from Mami.
Themes
Abuelita is delirious and calls for her long-deceased sister. When Sonia is the only one in the room with her, Abuelita demands a cigarette. Sonia tries to refuse, but finally lights a cigarette for her grandmother. Abuelita takes one puff and dies. At the funeral, Nelson shows up high on heroin. Sonia is enraged and sad. Nelson has been flunking out of college programs for years now. He’s brilliant, but he won’t show up and do the work. In the weeks after Abuelita’s death, Sonia understands how devastated Abuelita was when Papi died. Sonia feels unmoored, but she can still feel Abuelita’s protection.
Nelson’s appearance and his dependency on drugs makes Abuelita’s death hurt even more for Sonia. Sonia seems to still believe that Nelson doomed himself by getting into heroin—when in reality, addiction isn’t that simple and it’s been clear for a while that Nelson didn’t see himself following the same kind of academic path as Sonia does. His intelligence, this suggests, isn’t enough to make him a doctor like Tío Benny wants.
Themes
