Milkweed

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003

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Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 13 Summary

Mishais obsessed with the merry-go-round that sits in the park near Doctor Korczak and the orphan’s home. The merry-go-round is made of wood, with horses of differently-painted colors that go round and round to “tootling music” (50). Misha compares the colorfully-painted wooden horses with the real ones he sees in the streets; he notes how much more miserable the real horses look. Uri tells him that the merry-go-round isn’t for him, but Misha disagrees; Misha desperately wants to ride it. Uri grabs him by the neck and squeezes until Misha is unable to breathe, ordering him not to disobey.

Misha is thoroughly enchanted with the merry-go-round. Though he tries to steer Uri in the direction of it every time they are out together, Uri continues to keep a tight hold of Misha. When Misha is out alone however, he actively seeks out the merry-go-round, staring at it even when it is not moving.

Misha’s first day back at the merry-go-round, he tries to ride the merry-go-round without a ticket. Though he is able to ride it for a few moments, soon a child tells on him, screaming that Misha lacks a ticket. When Misha is unable to produce a ticket, the crowd around the merry-go-round shout slurs at him as he runs away. Little girls kick him, and little boys throw snowballs at him as their mothers laugh. Misha realizes Jews and Gypsies are not allowed to ride the merry-go-round.

From then on, Misha only watches the merry-go-round from a distance. Misha asks Doctor Korczak if the orphans ride the merry-go-round and the physician says they don’t. Once, in the middle of the night, Misha believes that he can hear the sound of the merry-go-round’s music. Misha races out into the night and sees that the electricity is running and that the merry-go-round is lit up and moving.

Misha rides the merry-go-round for hours before he rushes to the orphanage and tells Doctor Korczak to let the orphans out to ride it. The doctor pulls Misha into the house, chiding him and praising him for his kind-heartedness in equal measure, and letting him sleep at the orphanage. The next morning, Misha finds Uri and Doctor Korczak speaking to each other. Uri does not punish Misha for disobeying him, but Misha wishes he would. Misha loses his desire to ride the horses but continues to look at them.

Chapter 14 Summary

Trees in Warsaw continue to disappear and someone hacks at the wooden merry-go-round horses for firewood, desperate for warmth in the wintertime. Misha’s favorite black horse is now missing a leg and soon the angry crowd around the merry-go-round begins to become a mob. The group insists that a Jew is responsible for the vandalism, and soon enough, the crowd and Misha are shouting for the person responsible to be found.

Two Jackboots notice the commotion and soon find a Jewish man. The man is stripped naked and ropes are hung around his neck as the Jackboots spray him with water in the freezing cold. The Jackboots continue to torture the man as the crowd watches, some people cheering and clapping. Misha notes that the man’s eyes seem to grow in size while his body turns blue and seems to shrink away.

Misha does not return to the merry-go-round until the spring. The merry-go-round once again becomes a space of laughter and joy, despite having been the site of a murder.

Chapter 15 Summary: “Autumn”

The beginning of Chapter 15 finds Uri and Misha watching a large number of Jewish people in the streets, wearing signifying armbands, and heading in the same direction. The Jews seem to be carrying their entire lives with them, pulling carts and lugging sacks. Misha notes that the people look like a silent “blue-and-white parade” (56). Once again, Misha does not understand the situation and finds out from Uri that the people are being forced to move to the ghetto.

Uri warns Misha to return by the curfew and with that, the younger boy follows the Jews. Misha likens this to the Jackboot parade, and follows along in a mimicry of marching. Misha tries to speak with some of the Jewish people, but few are willing to speak with him. Misha is entirely ignorant of the insidious meaning behind the armbands that the Jewish people are forced to wear, and declares openly that he hopes someday he, too, will be able to have one. Misha sees Doctor Korczak and the children heading into the ghetto as well. Though Misha offers some of the people food, no one takes him up on the offer, until he sees Janina and her family in the crowd.

Janina’s father tells Misha that the other Jewish people do not speak to Misha because they are scared of him. Janina insists that the other people are scared of Misha because he is not Jewish. Janina, her father, and her Uncle Shepsel all take bites of Misha’s sausage, much to Janina’s mother’s protests. Misha helps Janina carry her sack full of her favorite things.

Soon, the crowd of people begin dropping heavy objects, running and trying to beat each other into the ghetto.

Chapters 13-15 Analysis

Misha clings desperately to a childhood that he never had. Misha’s obsession with the merry-go-round symbolizes his own innocence and childishness. While childishness and naivety are usually benign, Warsaw during the Holocaust has neither the time nor space for such carelessness. Misha finds himself drawn back to the merry-go-round, but he is forbidden from doing more than looking, by both society and his guardian, Uri. When Misha tries to ride the merry-go-round, both children and adults alike throw slurs at Misha and chase him away. Though society seeks to stop Misha from riding the merry-go-round due to prejudice and bigotry, Uri does so to keep Misha safe. Both forces keep Misha from embracing his right to childishness, a reflection of the Holocaust and its corruption of normalcy and innocence.

Uri tells Misha, over and over, that the merry-go-round is “not for [him]” (50). Spinelli portrays Misha’s naivety and ignorance to the prejudice against Jews to display the absurdity and irrationality of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Doctor Korczak is profoundly aware of the insanity that is rising to the surface of war-torn Warsaw. When Misha speaks to Doctor Korczak about why the orphans are unable to ride the merry-go-round, asking if it’s because they are Jewish, Korczak responds by saying, “They’re children […] children” (52). The incomprehensibility of the Holocaust is thus made tangible.

The way that the people of Warsaw view Jewish people is made apparent in this section as well. The prejudice and violence against Jews has previously been predominantly perpetuated by the Jackboots. However, there has been a growth in instances where the general public has displayed prejudice against Jewish people. The combination of the Jackboots’ violence and the public’s prejudice is embodied in the Jewish man who is blamed and killed for allegedly using one of the merry-go-round’s wooden horses as firewood. Spinelli writes of this moment, “They found the Jew. Or should I say, they found a Jew. Jews were interchangeable” (54).Spinelli utilizes Misha’s innocence, especially about the ghetto, to convey the insanity of the regime.