Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Nickel Boys, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Repression
Unity, Support, and Hope
History, Secrecy, and Racism
Civil Rights, Dignity, and Sacrifice
Power, Fear, and Upward Mobility
Summary
Analysis
On Christmas in 1962, Elwood receives a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at Zion Hill Baptist Church. He isn’t allowed to listen to Motown, since his grandmother—with whom he lives in Tallahasee—believes such music is inappropriate. Accordingly, he covets this record as the only thing he can listen to, reveling in Dr. King’s speeches about segregation and the importance of standing strong in the face of discrimination. In particular, he likes the speech that Dr. King gives about Fun Town, an amusement park that is closed to black people. Dr. King says that he had to explain to his daughter why he couldn’t take her to Fun Town, a place Elwood himself has often dreamed of visiting. When Dr. King says that his daughter is “as good as anybody who goes into Fun Town,” the message resonates profoundly in Elwood’s soul.
Elwood’s engagement with the Civil Rights Movement begins when he receives this record of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at Zion Hill Baptist Church. As the novel progresses, it’s important to remember his fondness for Dr. King’s notion that any black person is just “as good” as any white person, since Elwood eventually faces racist authorities at Nickel Academy—powerful figures who would like him to believe that he’s inferior to them.
Themes
Elwood knows that Fun Town lets children in free if they present a report card with perfect scores. A studious and intelligent young boy, Elwood saves his many perfect report cards, waiting for the day that Fun Town opens its doors to African Americans.
Right away, it becomes clear that Elwood is a hardworking young man determined to succeed despite the obstacles imposed on him by a racist society. At the same time, though, Whitehead has already revealed that Elwood is eventually sent to a reform school. The discrepancy between his hardworking nature and his embattled future thereby invites readers to wonder how, exactly, he finds himself doing time at Nickel Academy.
Themes
Elwood’s grandmother works at the Richmond Hotel, where Elwood spends his time when he’s not in school. While she cleans rooms, he reads comic books in the kitchen. Before long, he starts competing with the dishwashers to see who can dry the most plates the fastest, and he always wins. Eventually, the staff realize that they can trick him into doing their work, but he doesn’t notice this until a busboy brings a set of encyclopedias into the kitchen one day, explaining that a traveling salesman left them behind. Elwood challenges one of the dishwashers to a drying race, the winner of which will keep the encyclopedias. It’s a close race, but Elwood wins. When he gets the encyclopedias home, though, he realizes their pages are blank. The encyclopedias, his grandmother explains, are props used as sales samples.
Elwood’s determination to win the encyclopedias is emblematic of his optimistic belief that hard work and determination lead to good things. When he gets the encyclopedias home and realizes that they’re blank, though, he sees for the first time that this isn’t necessarily always the case. In truth, the world is often an unfair place, and diligence doesn’t always bring about positive change. This is an important lesson, one that he will encounter later when he arrives at Nickel Academy.
Themes
The disappointment of the empty encyclopedias deeply bothers Elwood, but he leaves them displayed on his bookshelves nonetheless. One of the books (the primary sample) has text inside of it, so he studies that one as much as possible. The next day, the busboy at the Richmond facetiously asks if Elwood liked the books. As the other staff members try to hide their smiles, Elwood realizes that they all knew the books were blank. From that point on, he stops accompanying his grandmother to work. In the following years, he wonders if the busboys were simply trying to trick him into doing their work all along.
When Elwood realizes that the staff at the Richmond knew the encyclopedias were blank, he suddenly questions his entire worldview, wondering if the dishwashers have been taking advantage of him. Simply put, this is the first time he recognizes his own naivety and sees that his optimistic belief in the goodness of the world isn’t necessarily based in reality. Rather, he slowly understands that many people are willing to take advantage of others and that the things he values most—hard work and diligence—won’t always help him avoid injustice.
Themes
Get the entire The Nickel Boys LitChart as a printable PDF.
