45 pages • 1 hour read
Hanna AlkafThe Weight of Our Sky
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A 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 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Uncle Chong plans to dig a tunnel away from the house, and Frankie suggests going to the Chinese gangs for help. Uncle Chong objects to how the gangs are killing indiscriminately in the riots. Mel wakes up with tear gas in the house, but an announcement states that the curfew is lifted for two hours. Uncle Chong tells Mel to stay while he and Frankie leave to get supplies, and they are added to Mel’s visions of death, which currently include her mother and Saf. Auntie Bee tells Mel that she and Uncle Chong lived in the same town as Mel, noting how their Malay neighbors were nice but made occasional racist comments to them. They paid more money than their neighbors to Alang, the local gang leader, and they were forced to leave when Frankie began fighting back against his tormentors.
When Uncle Chong and Frankie return with supplies, Uncle Chong reports that the violence is ongoing, noting a woman he found killed in the street. He says it is not yet safe for Mel to go home. Later, they notice Frankie is missing, and Auntie Bee stays up to wait for him. When Frankie returns, he has two radios and two chickens, which he says he killed and stole from neighbors’ abandoned houses. Auntie Bee slaps him, expressing her disappointment. The next day, they invite the neighbors over for fried chicken, but Mel and Auntie Bee do not eat any.
Chapter 6 Summary
Mel teaches Vincent a Malay game of tossing and gathering stones, while Vincent teaches Mel gin rummy. They joke about Chinese people gambling and Malay people playing with stones, and Vincent tells Mel that he is studying English in college. Vincent notices that Mel rearranged the books in his room, but he does not ask why. Vincent brings out a record player, and Mel asks him to change the song when a song reminds her of Saf, requesting The Beatles. Mel remembers how her father used to say that he was like Paul McCartney, while Mel’s mother was like John Lennon, two members of the Beatles. Mel’s father said he was optimistic, and her mother was impatient, but they fit together perfectly. Vincent sees Mel crying and asks what happened to her father. Mel explains that her father was a police officer, and he was killed in the 1967 riots in Penang, after which her mother would cry when The Beatles’ music played. The last thing Mel’s father told her was to take care of her mother, which Mel feels she has failed to do. Mel thinks about telling Vincent about the Djinn, but she fears rejection. Vincent tells Mel about the jasmine bushes in Auntie Bee’s garden, noting that Melati means “jasmine,” and praising the flower for its scent and resilience.
Chapter 7 Summary
Vincent comes home one day with a curfew pass, explaining to Auntie Bee that he joined the Red Cross. He will be able to leave the house during curfew to bring supplies and aid wherever it is needed. Auntie Bee comments that Vincent has always been generous and caring, but she holds back tears, worried that he might be hurt. Mel worries, too, but she tries to hide her fear, feeling the Djinn adding Vincent to the list of people to hurt in her mind. Later, Frankie criticizes Vincent for helping Malay and Chinese people alike, saying that it would be better for the Chinese people to either join the gangs to kill Malay people or only provide supplies to Chinese families. Vincent disagrees, and Frankie storms away. Mel remembers a story about Hang Nadim, who used banana stems to save people from flying swordfish in a fishing village, outwitting the Maharaja, or king, who had used men to intercept the swordfish with their bodies. Hang Nadim was celebrated as a hero, but he was executed by the king for his disobedience. Mel feels like she is protecting her family by catching the stabs of the Djinn, and she stays up all night walking in a triangle.
Chapter 8 Summary
Vincent returns from his first day with the Red Cross, and he tells Auntie Bee and Mel that everything was fine. Frankie notices Mel tapping her spoon on her bowl at dinner, but Vincent knocks his glass over, distracting everyone. The next day, Mel insists on coming with Vincent for his Red Cross work, hoping to find out about her mother, and Vincent reluctantly agrees. Mel and Vincent tell Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong that they are bringing Mel to her aunt’s home nearby, and they meet with Jagdev Singh, or “Jay,” another Red Cross worker. Entering Kuala Lumpur, Mel vomits when she sees the dead bodies of people killed in the riots. They get stopped at a roadblock, where a soldier cuts open their supplies and upsets Vincent. They need to find a truck filled with eggs, which they locate; they split up, with Jay taking the egg truck and Mel and Vincent responding to a call.
Two Indian women, a mother and daughter, ask for help with a Malay man, Roslan, who fell outside their home. Roslan fears he might be in danger passing through Chinese neighborhoods. Mel suggests disguising Roslan as an Indian woman. They are stopped at another roadblock, but Roslan’s disguise works. Vincent and Mel drive back to Auntie Bee’s home, planning to explain that they were not able to get to Mel’s aunt’s house, allowing them to go out again the next day with the same excuse. Vincent asks Mel about her tapping and counting, which makes Mel panic, but she explains about the visions the Djinn gives her and how the counting helps calm her down. She says that music is helpful, and Vincent starts singing a Beatles song to help Mel.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
The predominant theme of Chapters 5-8 is Race and Identity in a Society Divided Along Racial Lines, as Mel interacts more with the first character who is explicitly in favor of racial violence: Frankie. The first night Mel stays with Auntie Bee, Frankie interjects at dinner, asking, “Why invite this Malay girl into our home? Why must we share our food with her when her kind don’t even want to share a country with us?” (68), which addresses the issue of race on two fronts: private and public. Later in the section, Vincent clarifies this violent position, noting that the rioters do not care who a person is: “They just know that we’re not them. That’s enough” (136). This recalls the idea of Mel’s being separated from concepts of race. Though Mel is Malay, her dispassion for the racial tension in Kuala Lumpur distinguishes her, like Vincent with the Red Cross, from either the Malay or Chinese groups. Instead, both of them are trying to help others through the violence, without investing their energies in violence for either side.
When Frankie identifies Mel as Malay, associating her with the violent Malay groups fighting alongside equally violent Chinese groups in the streets, he is not necessarily assuming that Mel sympathizes with the Malay people over the Chinese people; rather, because she is “not them,” or an “Other,” he assumes anyway that she is most likely an enemy. Frankie’s judgments, though, are rooted in personal experience, with Auntie Bee revealing how Malay children used to bully Frankie when they lived in the same neighborhood in which Mel and her mother live now. Auntie Bee says that the Malay children, as well as the adults, who also made racist comments, made Frankie “bitter.” The result is that Frankie strengthened his identification with his own race, leading to the insistence with which he urges Vincent to only provide aid to Chinese families, suggesting even that they join the Chinese gangs in killing Malay people. The strength of Frankie’s individual identity and experience then bleeds over into the political realm of racial discrimination. As Uncle Chong notes, this second layer of racist ideology lies with “[b]loody politicians and their bloody stupid rhetoric, speeches, ideologies” (123), which prompted broader expression of individual feelings, like Frankie’s, into the extreme violence of the 1969 riots. Critically, the instigation Jay notes is political, existing at an abstract level of the country’s functioning. For individuals like Frankie, this political upheaval is an excuse to vent their rage, while for people like Vincent and Mel, the riots are an unnecessary and violent challenge to overcome.
An important intersection of Mel’s character development, The Stigma and Reality of Mental Health and The Importance of Love and Friendship, builds and resolves in this chapter section, as Mel begins a budding romance with Vincent. Vincent, unlike Frankie, carries the balanced perspective of his father, though he seems too generous for his own safety by signing up to work with the Red Cross despite the risk of danger. As such, he is a prime character for Mel to address her mental health concerns with, as she does when he asks about her tapping. In a prior scene, however, Vincent shows an interest in keeping Mel safe, specifically regarding her compulsions. When Frankie notices Mel tapping her spoon on her bowl, her worst fears are almost realized, as the Djinn chides her: “Keep going and they’ll know you’re crazy. Stop and your mother dies” (117). Mel believes both that her tapping reveals her difference, which will ostracize her from friends and family, and that her tapping is needed to protect her loved ones. Vincent touches Mel, then knocks his glass to the ground, distracting everyone and showing that Vincent is both aware and accepting of Mel’s differences. Then, when Mel reveals most of her story, omitting the specific detail of the Djinn, Vincent decides to comfort Mel by singing a Beatles song after she notes that music helps her find “a rhythm for the mess in my head, so that it somehow…makes sense” (141). Music is a form of self-care for Mel, and Vincent takes this as an opportunity to show his support for her struggle. His action reassures Mel that people can accept and support her without judgment while deepening their friendship.
