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22. Without a Song
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Dreams and Values
Justice and Retribution
Human Connection
Love and Grace
Social Divisions and Tribalism
Summary
Analysis
Not long after Isaac’s visit, Bernice approaches Fatty in the woods behind his jook joint while he and Big Soap are disassembling an antique car Fatty “found” at a demolition site and which he hopes will make him some quick cash. Bernice and Fatty have barely spoken since Bernice claimed ownership of their childhood home. But it’s more than that. Fatty doesn’t like Bernice’s religiosity or the fact that she has had children by no fewer than three men. Bernice thinks the jook joint is unbecoming for a man of character. And her hard life has made her a hard woman.
Fatty’s endless entrepreneurial efforts (some more legal than others) attest to his desire to achieve the American Dream of economic stability and social recognition, too, even with the odds stacked against him. Bernice’s response irks Fatty in part because it seems like giving up. Instead of trying to improve her lot, she turns to religion for comfort. But, the book suggests, neither sibling should judge the other (and neither should readers), as there are a range of ways to respond to and fight against the dehumanization of prejudice and segregation, none of which is more noble than the other.
Active
Themes
Bernice chides Fatty for skipping Chona’s funeral, reminding him of their shared history and how much the Flohrs did for the Davises after Shad died. Fatty maintains that Bernice paid Chona back when she helped Chona hide Dodo, which could get her in legal trouble if the “blabbermouth” who told the state where the boy was ever finds out. That won’t happen, Bernice says, because Reverend Spriggs confessed to her that he was the blabbermouth, having befriended the Black man sent by the state. But she doesn’t know how Doc found out.
Fatty still wants to try to separate himself—and by extension the Black community on the Hill—from the fate of the Jewish community. But they're inextricably linked in no small part because White society considers and treats both Black and Jewish people as their inferiors. They’re better off standing together against a common enemy than letting White society play them against each other for scraps of privilege.
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Themes
Anyway, Fatty doesn’t want to believe that anyone on the Hill owes anyone else anything. He alleges that most of their Jewish neighbors have been happy to abandon the Black community in pursuit of assimilation into White society. But Chona wasn’t like that, Bernice insists. She asks Fatty if he helped Shad lay the pipes that diverted water from the city well to the synagogue. He says yes. She wants to know if he could still find the spot. He says yes. Bernice stands and pulls a flat, squarish package from her bag, which she puts down where she was sitting. She says it’s a gift. Fatty suspects that it’s a Bible—just like the last so-called gift she gave him—but she disappears before he can complain. He leaves it sitting there for hours. When he opens it, he does indeed find a Bible—but he also finds a letter and $900.
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Themes
