82 pages • 2 hours read
Jason ReynoldsWhen I Was the Greatest
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Complexities of Defining “Family”
When I Was the Greatest explores different ways the concept of family, and one’s relationship to family, can be defined. Reynolds achieves this primarily, but not exclusively, through Ali and Noodles’s interactions with their siblings and mothers. This allows for a more expansive and realistic representation of African American single-parent households.
The similarities between Ali and Noodles’s families ironically double as points of contrast in their family dynamics. For example, both boys live in female-headed single-parent households, but their mothers’ approaches to parenting could not be more disparate. Both mothers are often away from home, but Doris makes sure there is food for Ali and Jazz—enough even for Noodles. Conversely, the James brothers live in a house so bare that that it “didn’t even have frozen water” (134). This basic aspect of care considered a norm in most families, including Ali’s, is entirely absent from Noodles and Needles’s family. At one point, Ali is dumbfounded when their mother Janice “ran down the stoop, passed Needles, and into the black cab. She didn’t even acknowledge him” (65). Actions like these, and her general lack of affection for her children, make Janice a perfect model of the stereotypically neglectful single mother. By including this version of single-mothering, Reynolds acknowledges that it is true of some experiences, but he challenges its use as a prototype for the experience of all African American children raised by single mothers. In Doris, Reynolds represents the lives of busy single mothers who are still attentive parents capable of providing a well-adjusted upbringing for their children.
Ali and Noodles both have siblings whom they love, but while Ali is often shown worrying about and affectionate with his sister, his affection is juxtaposed by images of Noodles slapping Needles on his head, symbolizing their seemingly uncomfortable and affectionless relationship. The boys’ contrasting attachments to their mothers and siblings play a key role in their understanding of family and influences the value they place on their familial relationships. For Ali, his firm ties to family mean that for him, these connections are unbreakable. For Noodles, whose father so easily walked away from them and whose mother neglects them, the attachment to family is much less secure.
Through familial-type bonds in the Decatur and Lewis community, When I Was the Greatest represents the experience of finding family beyond the ties of blood relation. In the absence of John, Malloy is co-opted into a role of mentorship, “to be some sort of positive male figure” (45) for Ali and for other boys in the area whose fathers are absent. This shows that while many children are without their biological fathers, it does not mean they are being raised without the involvement of father figures. Another example is Brother’s barbershop, which acts as a space of community and support. When Ali and Noodles need advice on finding yarn, they seek it at Brother’s, and the men in the barbershop fulfil that parental role for the boys, thus challenging the perception that African American children with busy or infrequently present parents are completely devoid of guidance. Ms. Brenda, through her babysitting, and other unseen members of the neighborhood also contribute to this supervision. Ali interprets their watchfulness as surveillance, saying, “Doris was known for having spies on the block, clocking my every move whenever I was on punishment” (163). Their collaborative approach to supporting the neighborhood children is not unlike that of an extended family and is an embodiment of the idiom “it takes a village to raise a child.”
The Effects of Inequality on the African American Experience
There are several manifestations of socio-economic inequality that are vital to the story’s physical setting and to understanding the circumstances that influence the characters’ lives. Incorporating these details are an asset to Reynolds’s strategy for closely reflecting reality in his portrayal of the African American experience.
As a single parent, Doris works two jobs to afford rising rent costs because the neighborhood is gentrifying. As a result, she has less time to spend with her children than she would like. This impacts her availability to share her skills and experience with things like knitting. The knitting needles and yarn were originally purchased because Doris “was planning to teach Jazz how to […] but she never had time to, with all the jobs” (22). This is notable because that time together spent passing knowledge from one generation to another is key to keeping cultural traditions alive. Here, Reynolds captures how the insidious ripple effects of inequality can endanger the passing down of traditions.
This economic pressure is not reserved for parents. Children in neighborhoods like Ali’s often feel its weight, as is portrayed through Ali having a part-time job and feeling responsible for contributing to the maintenance of his household. Ali struggled with mental health issues in his early days because of his perception of responsibility. His anxiety came from internal pressure, but its source does not negate the reality of this pressure. Reynolds’s message is that in these circumstances, children are not always free to be children because the additional burden on their households is emotional as well as financial.
Inequality is also represented in access to social services like health care and education. Despite concern about Needles’s injuries, Ali and Noodles instinctively know the hospital is not an option because “a trip to the hospital could mean the end to a roof over your head” (132). A vignette into Black’s backstory also links to this theme with an anecdote about his education. As a “show-don’t-tell kind of guy” (74), he learns best with a tactile teaching approach and therefore struggled in school because “no one was ever showing him anything, so he couldn’t quite understand most of the subjects” (74). This is illustrative of an all-too-common experience of schooling in predominantly low-income African American areas, where there are inadequate resources to adapt teaching strategies to suit the individual needs of students with learning challenges.
The contrasting descriptions of Ali and Tasha’s blocks invoke images of economic inequality in a less subtle way. Ali refers to Tasha’s area as “the ‘Cosby’ side of the street” (111), which recalls the lifestyle of the TV family the Huxtables. Like Tasha’s family, the Huxtables lived in a brownstone owned by parents with upper-middle-class incomes. Looking at the pristine street, Ali speculates it is the area his mother was “always talking about [that] all the white people were moving into” (111), a signal that Tasha lives in a gentrified area. Whoever they are, Tasha’s neighbors are different and “don’t play around” (115). In contrast, Noodles and Needles’s apartment was taken over by someone who “didn’t care too much about nothing when it came to who they let live there” (9), which caused the conditions to deteriorate into a slum. In this example, Reynolds notes the impact of gentrification and illustrates how income disparities can drastically impact housing conditions, even in a single street.
Fear of Embarrassment
Throughout the When I Was the Greatest, many characters are concerned about how they may be perceived by others in the community, and so their actions are driven by the fear of experiencing embarrassment.
Ali recalls being six years old and lying to Malloy about the last time he saw John because Doris instructed him “never tell people [his] dad was in jail” (38). Doris did this because she did not want her family to be judged for it. Her fear of shaming is so strong that she would rather Ali be dishonest. That is an intense message to send to a six-year-old child, and its lingering influence is evident in the teenage Ali, who often worries about causing embarrassment to others in the neighborhood. He avoids asking Noodles about his mother’s work because it is assumed she is a sex worker, and he knows that makes his friend uncomfortable. When he catches sight of the toothbrush and towel in John’s car, he says nothing about it “because it’s just not cool to put people’s embarrassing situations on blast” (91).
No one fears shame more than Noodles. He took months to introduce his brother to Ali out of fear Needles would embarrass him and chase Ali away like their father. Even so, Noodles is quick to attack to get ahead of anyone mocking Needles and his Tourette’s. The irony of this is that Noodles is the one most ashamed of his brother. Concerns that Needles will be judged for his purple yarn prompt Noodles and Ali to find what they believe is a more suitable replacement. The yarn-stealing incident is an excellent example of how the fear of embarrassment can consume Noodles. He knows he cannot afford the yarn, and his anxiety about his financial state is evidenced in his nail biting and unfocused staring out the window on the bus ride to the knitting store. The journey is hot and uncomfortable, so much so that Ali describes it as “hell,” but Noodles is so worried about how he will acquire the yarn that he doesn’t seem to notice. Rather than admit that he has no money and open himself up to feeling embarrassed, he risks imprisonment.
In one of the final scenes, Noodles sets this fear aside and joins a screaming Needles on the stoop. Sobbing uncontrollably, he makes exactly the kind of scene he would lock his brother away for causing. This demonstrates that his fear of embarrassment has been superseded by the greater fear of losing his brother.
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