Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Change, Coming of Age, and Maturity
Family, Friendship, and Support
Bullying and Injustice vs. Kindness and Compassion
Race and Class
Summary
Analysis
When Wilona was young, her house caught on fire. For the next two years, her clothes always smelled like smoke. Because she remembers this experience so well, she’s very strict whenever she catches Byron playing with matches. But he never listens to her. Finally, she tells him that if she finds him playing with fire one more time, she’s going to burn him to teach him a lesson. Still, Kenny comes across Byron playing with matches one day in the bathroom. He’s pretending to direct a movie scene in which Nazi fighter pilots (played by small pieces of paper) are hit by Captain Byron Watson’s “flamethrower of death.” This involves lighting pieces of paper on fire and dropping them into the toilet.
No matter what Wilona says, Byron doesn’t listen to her. His disobedience is, it seems, a kind of rebellion that many adolescents go through. For Kenny, though, watching Byron defy orders time and again feels like an incredibly big deal, since Kenny himself follows all of his parents’ rules and knows exactly when Byron steps out of line. He thus observes his brother’s misbehavior with apprehension, just waiting to see what his mother will do when she finds out that he has stepped out of line once again.
Themes
Wilona smells smoke and storms into the bathroom. She grabs Byron and pulls him by his neck to the living room. Kenny and Joey follow them, and Joey starts crying because she always wants to protect Byron. She pleads with her mother to let him off the hook, insisting that he has surely learned his lesson. But Wilona doesn’t listen, instead getting some matches, a paper towel, some Vaseline, and a band-aid. It becomes clear that she intends to burn him and then patch him up herself. Before she can do anything, though, Joey places herself between Wilona and Byron.
Joey is a fiercely loyal younger sister. She knows that Byron blatantly broke their mother’s rules by playing with fire, but she still doesn’t want to see her older brother get punished or hurt. She therefore demonstrates her own kindness and compassion, showing empathy for Byron that even Kenny can’t quite muster up.
Themes
Wilona reasons with her daughter, explaining that she doesn’t want to hurt Byron. But she has to burn him, she says—otherwise, Byron will never learn his lesson and will keep playing with fire, thus putting the entire household in jeopardy. Plus, Wilona swore to God that she would burn Byron if he ever played with fire again. If she didn’t do it, then, she’d be breaking her word to God. Since Joey is very religious and attends Sunday School multiple times every week, she relents and steps aside. But just when the flame of Wilona’s match is about to touch Byron’s finger, Joey rushes over and blows it out. This happens four more times. Eventually, Wilona gives up.
Again, Joey demonstrates her sisterly loyalty to Byron. Although she understands that Wilona has to punish Byron for misbehaving, she can’t let her mother hurt her brother—a good indication of Joey’s capacity for kindness and compassion. She simply can’t stand the idea of Byron suffering any pain, even if she agrees with her mother that he deserves it.
Themes
