Miles Morales: Spider-Man

Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2017

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary

Miles enters camo-mode so Mr. Chamberlain doesn’t see him and tries to match his brisk pace. Mr. Chamberlain enters a door on the edge of the school auditorium; the door leads to a tunnel that Miles has never seen before. They walk through what Miles assumes is the sewer for 20 minutes before they reach a field with a single castle-like building standing tall in its center. Miles recognizes other landmarks in the area: barbed wire, fences, and a sign reading “department of corrections.” He realizes they’re at the prison where he visited Austin earlier that day. He follows Mr. Chamberlain into the building and discovers that it’s the building he’s been seeing in his dreams.

Miles watches as a group of men surround one elderly man. The man, who is addressed as the “Warden,” greets all of the men, calling them the “Chamberlains.” They discuss several children, all of whom are African American. They state that they are going to “snatch” the children when it’s easiest. Eventually, Miles’s Mr. Chamberlain speaks up, exposing that he is targeting Miles and is aware of his identity as Spider-Man. Mr. Chamberlain framed Miles for stealing the Campus Convenience store’s sausages and claims he is close to “breaking” him. It is revealed that the Warden and the Chamberlains wish to reinstitute slavery through the incarceration of as many people as possible. The men share a toast, and Miles runs back to his school, angry and horrified.

Chapter 11 Summary

Miles tells Ganke what he witnessed at the prison once they return to their dorm room after the dance. At first, Ganke is more concerned with Miles’s brief conversation with Alicia than what happened with Mr. Chamberlain, but quickly refocuses once he realizes Miles may be in danger. He stops Miles from confronting the Warden immediately, begging him to at least sleep on it, so he can enter the confrontation with a clear head. Reluctantly, Miles agrees and prepares for bed. While staring at the ceiling, Miles contemplates everything he’s learned and just how deeply he and his community have been impacted by the Warden and his Chamberlains. He thinks about Uncle Aaron, his father’s three friends, and the missing men in his neighborhood. He falls asleep contemplating whether Alicia liked his sijo or not.

Chapter 12 Summary

Miles wakes up the next morning nauseous and dizzy. Seeing that the sun has slowly begun to slip over the horizon, Miles gets out of bed and heads to the shower. Afterward, he brushes his teeth and is alarmed to see Uncle Aaron’s reflection staring back at him. He blinks and looks back at the mirror; this time, he is greeted by Austin’s reflection. Miles splashes water on his face and is alarmed when he watches his own reflection begin to distort, bloody and white. He leaves the bathroom quickly and gets dressed. On a normal Sunday morning, he would go to church with his mother, and seeking this sense of normalcy, Miles heads to the BVA chapel.

When Miles arrives, he realizes the chapel is locked, and that it is too early for anyone to be inside. He sits on the steps and waits for other people to show up. While waiting, he notices a group of maintenance workers cleaning trash from the previous night (Halloween). Miles walks over and offers to help; he feels the need to prove himself as a hero who helps with both the big and small issues in his community. The men are surprised and skeptical at first, but quickly accept Miles’s help. They discuss restaurants and the sudden disappearance of one of their peers, Benji; Miles recognizes the name from the group of men he “hustled” at the basketball court. When Miles asks for clarification on Benji’s disappearance, the men become suspicious, and Miles drops the conversation.

Chapters 10-12 Analysis

Miles follows Mr. Chamberlain to the castle-like building of his dreams after he sees him leaving the school’s Halloween party: “The house was beautiful. […] A cat-o’-nine-tails hung on the wall between a set of portraits” (217). The image of the cat-o’-nine-tails alludes to a kind of whip used on unruly prisoners in a prison in New York (Paulson, Linda Dailey, “Sing Sing.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Mar. 2023). This whip, the symbolic culmination of Mr. Chamberlain’s cat tattoo and other references to white cats, is the novel’s final foreshadowing before the Warden’s plan and “whip” are revealed in Chapters 13.

Miles thinks about what he is going to do about Mr. Chamberlain and the Warden as he lays in bed, reflecting on the many people he knows who are being impacted (or were impacted) by the racist men. Again, his thoughts about Austin parallel fears he has about his own life: “He thought about Austin, how he was unconsciously following in his father’s footsteps down a path that he didn’t even know was paved for him the moment he was born” (226). Miles thinks about what happened to Austin as an event of fate, something predetermined and unstoppable. This way of thinking reflects his fear of his own predisposition to evil, that he isn’t doing enough to help those around him and perhaps making things worse for them. Austin, Miles’s literal and figurative mirror, was seemingly unable to avoid inheriting his father’s life of crime—but Miles’s idea of fate is complicated by his revelation of the Warden’s supernatural influence: “He thought about the dreams that the Warden had planted. The nightmares he and Austin shared. The white cats. The reminders that they had bad blood” (226). Like Mr. Davis’s friend Sip said earlier in the novel, with a dog analogy, it is difficult to stay true to one’s morals without a support system—or when the world truly seems against one. This particular analogy also employs a tree, which recalls Mr. Chamberlain’s comment about Miles’s rotten “roots.” Miles’s revelation of the truth, that an order of racist men (representing systemic racism) is exacerbating his community’s problems, both clarifies and further complicates his understanding of legacy.

In the morning, before Miles decides to confront the Chamberlains and the Warden, he sees some maintenance workers cleaning up trash on campus. Miles can’t “help but think about his father telling him that he was responsible for his block, and that being a hero wasn’t always just the big things, but also the small things,” which leads him to lend a hand (230). This moment shows how Miles has begun to see the importance of community (rather than being overwhelmed by the pressure of doing his community proud) and how heroism isn’t just about fighting villains, an interesting revelation, considering Miles barely spends time as Spider-Man in this novel. In this moment, Miles becomes a hero of his community, something that helps him accept both of his identities as Miles Morales and Spider-Man as a single entity.