40 pages • 1 hour read
Sharon M. DraperForged By Fire
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 22-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
At Rob’s funeral, Gerald notices that Mrs. Washington refuses to look at Andy. Andy is made captain of the basketball team, but he becomes an outcast as school. Gerald struggles with Rob’s death and wonders “why Rob was gone and he still lived” (142). Gerald comes home late from games and walks home rather than taking the bus.
When Gerald arrives home at midnight and sees Jordan and Angel alone, he becomes defensive. Angel tells him that Jordan has been acting nice and took her out to get food, though she still does not trust him. Gerald tells Angel that they will move out together when he graduates from high school.
The following day, Gerald leaves for a basketball tournament, and Angel goes to dance lessons. Angel returns home first in the afternoon and finds the house empty. She decides to boil hot dogs for herself and practices her dance audition while waiting for them to boil. Jordan comes home drunk and tries to sexually assault Angel. She fights him and tells him that she’s his daughter, but he claims that he’s not Angel’s father. As they fight, the hot dogs left on the stove start a fire, which Jordan does not notice.
Chapter 23 Summary
On his way home, Gerald senses something is wrong. He sees smoke coming out of his building and rushes up the stairs. Gerald is reluctant to enter the apartment and wrestles with the memory of the fire from when he was a child. In the apartment, he finds Angel on her bed and Jordan standing over her. Jordan and Gerald fight. Jordan tells Gerald that he should have killed him and has always resented him for turning him into the police. Gerald almost succumbs to the smoke, but he remembers Angel and tries to lead her out of the apartment. Gerald notices something heavy blocking the doorway, but he cannot make out what it is. Gerald hears firefighters running up the stairs and Monique’s voice before passing out.
Chapter 24 Summary
Angel and Gerald wake up in an ambulance wearing oxygen masks. Monique is there as well as paramedics and the police. Gerald asks Monique what happened to Jordan, and the police officer tells them that he’s dead. The officer believes Jordan slipped because of the “slick soles” of his new cowboy boots (154).
Gerald believes Jordan is the reason he and Angel are still alive, since he was the large object they tripped over by the door, allowing them to avoid the overhead smoke. Monique cries, but she is happy that Jordan is now out of their lives. She asks Gerald and Angel if she can ride with them to the hospital. Angel’s cat, Tiger, hops into the ambulance, too, and the four of them ride towards the hospital, listening to the sirens.
Chapters 22-24 Analysis
In Chapter 22, Gerald compares himself to Rob. He finds it unfair that he is alive while Rob is dead because he “had two parents who adored him, not at all like the abusive Jordan and the helpless Monique” (141). This quote suggests that Gerald believes he deserves the traumas of his life because his parents don’t care about him. This speaks to the poor self-image that children of abuse develop and negates what Gerald learned when he was living with Aunt Queen. Monique, too, frequently excuses Jordan’s behavior early in the novel and acts as though she deserves the mistreatment.
Gerald also experiences “survivor’s guilt,” since he could have been in the car that night with Rob and Andy. Gerald’s grief leads him to walk from school rather than take the bus, which makes him come home late, leaving Angel and Jordan alone. In this way, tragedy begets tragedy.
Chapter 23 is the novel’s final climax; Gerald finally has an intense confrontation with Jordan. For the entire novel, Gerald is haunted by fire. When he finds the apartment on fire, he panics “as his memories of flames engulfed him” (149). For Gerald, the fire represents his past, specifically “Aunt Queen’s lost hugs and Angel’s lost innocence… Monique’s dim weakness, Andy’s unbearable guilt, and Rob’s fiery destruction” (151). His reluctance to open the apartment door reflects his reluctance to face these difficult memories. He does, however, because he cares more for Angel than he does for his own well-being, which is the mark of a good parent.
Chapter 21 is the novel’s resolution. With Jordan gone, Monique finally realizes “all the flames of pain and hatred he had caused” (155). She recognizes how he has manipulated and abused her and her family. That she asks permission to join Gerald and Angel suggests that she also sees her failure as their mother—she doesn’t feel entitled to her place on the ambulance, and she asks to be with them rather than insists. Gerald, Angel, and Monique ride “with the flames and fear behind them” (156). In this chapter, fire not only references Jordan and the harm he’s caused, but each character’s attachment to the past. As the ambulance drives forward, they are forging a better life together.
Related Titles
By Sharon M. Draper
