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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mighty Miss Malone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Hope
Talent and Hard Work
Family
The Black Experience in America
The Great Depression
Summary
Analysis
Deza finally understands why the fight is so important a few days later, when Mr. Malone explains it to her over dinner. He starts by reminding her how easy it can be to get people to believe false or harmful things by being persuasive. He knows that Deza thinks boxing is goofy—to her, the sport is essentially two grown men in underwear pounding each other silly with oversized red mittens. But boxing is one of the few areas of American life where the color of a person’s skin doesn’t seem to matter. The Germans and their leader, Adolf Hitler, hope that the match will prove once and for all that White people like Max Schmeling are inherently superior to Black people like Joe Louis. A victory for Louis is a victory for America, but also for Black people.
Mr. Malone’s lesson about manipulation and persuasion points obliquely to one of the most harmful beliefs held by the majority of Americans in the pre-Civil Rights Era—one which has a long history and continues to have an impact to this day: that some people (specifically, Black or other non-White people) are less worthy than their White counterparts. The Louis-Schmeling fight is exciting, at least in part, because it pushes back against that idea in a forceful way, especially with so many White people rooting for Joe Louis.
Themes
But Joe Louis doesn’t win the match. As the radio commentator screams about “the greatest upset in the history of the world!” no one at the barbershop listening party can make eye contact with anyone else. Mr. Malone, Mrs. Malone, Jimmie, Deza, and Clarice (who came with the Malones) leave the shop in stunned silence. Mr. Malone is so upset that his lisp—which had been gradually improving over the preceding week—comes back in force. People in the streets are raging and crying. For reasons she can’t articulate, Deza feels not only sadness but overwhelming fear on the way home.
One of the book’s lessons is that natural talent isn’t enough on its own. One of the reasons Louis lost was because he felt assured of his own success and didn’t seriously prepare for the match, unlike Schmeling, who studied his opponent carefully and exploited his weaknesses. In any case, given the racial ideas riding on the fight, Louis’s loss feels like a loss for all Black Americans. And readers should remember that it was one of the few things giving Mr. Malone hope in this dark period of his life. With that hope lost, it’s unclear what will happen. Deza knows the first thing (that the prospect of a Louis victory gave her father hope) consciously and the second subconsciously, which is why she feels scared.
Themes
