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Chapter 12
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
Misha’s resolve to obey Uri doesn’t last very long, because he sees the carousel horses. The carousel is in a park near the orphans’ home; Misha is enchanted by the colorfully decorated horses moving in a circle to cheery music. He’s never seen such a thing before. But when he starts moving toward the carousel, Uri stops him, saying, “It’s not for you.” Misha laughs—he thinks everything is for him. But then Uri squeezes Misha’s neck until he can’t breathe, showing that he means what he says.
Misha’s innocence is displayed by the fact that he’s always taken for granted that if something is available for the taking, it’s as good as his. He doesn’t understand Uri’s implication that, as a poor, homeless, minority kid, the carousel doesn’t belong to his world. Unlike Misha, Uri knows that crossing the boundaries of those worlds—the privileged and impoverished worlds—comes with a cost.
Themes
Misha can’t resist visiting the carousel whenever he’s alone. One day, he jumps onto a black horse with golden tassels and golden hooves. But he doesn’t have a ticket, so the attendant throws him into the snow. But even when the other children kick him and throw snow at him for being a “dirty Gypsy,” that doesn’t stop Misha from sneaking back the next day to watch from a distance. He visits the carousel again and again. Once, he asks Doctor Korczak why the orphans don’t ride the carousel—is it because they’re Jews? Doctor Korczak has been watching the orphans with a fatherly smile. Now he turns to Misha in surprise, saying, “They’re children.”
For Misha, the carousel symbolizes the beauty of a world that’s out of his reach as a street orphan presumed to belong to an unwanted minority group. Misha, trying to make sense of this baffling difference in worlds, talks to Doctor Korczak about it. But Doctor Korczak is so accustomed to thinking of his orphans simply as “children” that he’s taken aback by Misha’s innocent categorization of them as “Jews.” Doctor Korczak’s unspoken meaning is that human beings cannot be reduced to simple categories.
Themes
One night, Misha sneaks out of the stable, thinking he hears the carousel music. Sure enough, the city’s intermittent electricity came on in the middle of the night, and the empty carousel is running. Misha spends hours riding horse after horse, laughing the whole time. Then, dizzy, he stumbles to the orphans’ home and tells Doctor Korczak to bring the children. Doctor Korczak shakes Misha, calling him “foolish, good-hearted boy.” He puts Misha to bed.
This passage is one of the novel’s foremost examples of Misha’s innocence. For one of very few times in his life, he gets to participate in a carefree, childlike activity. Yet there’s a darker side too—he has to do this in the middle of the night for fear of being caught by the authorities (and Doctor Korczak is far more aware of the danger than he is).
Themes
The next morning, Uri comes to take Misha home. Misha expects Uri to smack him or call him stupid, but he does nothing. His silence makes Misha lose the desire to ride the horses, though not the desire to look out at the carousel.
Misha has come to associate Uri’s rough handling of him with affection, a further reminder of the fact that Misha has no memory of any other kind of parental treatment.
Themes
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