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 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
In the car with Jay, Vincent encourages everyone to sing until he tells Jay to stop the car. They find bodies in a nearby river, and Vincent and Jay remove them while Mel goes back to the car, tapping and counting along the way. They go to Kampung Baru, where Mel lives, and they see how the neighborhood is destroyed. Vincent notes how Batu Street was already divided with Malay families and gangs on one side and Chinese families and the triads on the other. Mel finds her home in ruins, and her mother is not there. Her neighbor, Mak Sati, finds her and scolds her for failing to come home after school, telling her that she made a full fried fish for dinner that night. Mak Sati says Mel’s mother came home during the riots, but she had to go back to the hospital to work.
Mel and Mak Sati are interrupted by Pakcik Adnan, Saf’s father, who asks where Saf is. Mel explains what happened at the Rex and starts crying, and Pakcik Adnan cries. Pakcik Adnan criticizes Mel for leaving Saf, saying Saf should have survived. Mel tries to disagree, but Pakcik Adnan spits at her feet and walks away. Vincent tries to help Mel, returning to Jay’s car, which is destroyed. Mel succumbs to her anxiety, collapsing, when she sees Jay’s handkerchief on the ground, covered in blood.
Chapter 10 Summary
Vincent goes to find alternative transportation and eventually returns on a stolen motorcycle. They drive away, but they notice a group of guards shooting at them. Pulling into an alley, they find that Vincent has a gunshot wound on his arm, and they hear someone groaning. They find a pregnant woman in a nearby shop. The woman’s name is Azizah, or “Jee,” and she is scared to leave the shop. Vincent goes to get the guards’ help, but he returns and says they will not help him, because he is Chinese.
Mel resolves to get their help, and she suppresses the Djinn as she walks toward the guards shouting an Arabic greeting. The guards are suspicious, but their leader, Mat, agrees to help. Mat comforts Jee, telling her about his own wife’s pregnancy. Mat, Mel, Jee, and another guard drive to the hospital, and Mel realizes it is the same hospital where her mother works. Once Jee is safe, Mel finds Auntie Fatimah, her mother’s friend, and asks her about her mother. Auntie Fatimah asks another nurse, and they tell Mel that her mother, Salmah, left a couple of days ago to look for Mel. Mel collapses into a fit of counting, and Vincent arrives to bring her back to Auntie Bee’s home.
Chapter 11 Summary
At Auntie Bee’s house, Mel notices a broken window. The house is in disarray, and Frankie tells Vincent that they were attacked by a Malay gang. Uncle Chong was injured, but Frankie got both Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong to Chin Woo Stadium, where Chinese families are gathering. Frankie and Vincent gather supplies to bring to Chin Woo, and Mel settles into counting leaves. When Frankie leaves, Vincent comes to get Mel, but she says she cannot move. Vincent calls Mel selfish, and they do not speak on the way to Chin Woo. They find Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong, and the Djinn laughs at their injuries. Mel thinks about her mother, Saf, and Auntie Bee’s family dying, and Vincent tells her he is taking his family to Kelantan, where they might be safe. He offers to take Mel to another stadium, Stadium Negara, where Malay families are gathering.
Vincent brings Mel to Stadium Negara. They part ways, and Mel does not look back to hide her tears. Stadium Negara is less occupied than Chin Woo, and Mel asks a guard for help. Mel finds Auntie Tipah, her mother’s coworker. Auntie Tipah explains that she and Mel’s mother left the hospital, but Auntie Tipah fell and twisted her ankle. Mel’s mother helped her, until they heard a Chinese gang approaching. Mel’s mother put Auntie Tipah in an outhouse, then distracted the gang, but Auntie Tipah does not know what happened to Mel’s mother. Auntie Tipah apologizes for failing to help Mel’s mother.
Chapters 9-11 Analysis
While the prior chapter section largely framed violence as something happening between other people instead of those related directly to Mel, with even Saf’s fate being left to the imagination, this chapter section brings that violence into Mel’s and Vincent’s homes. For Mel, this transition is inherently tied to The Stigma and Reality of Mental Health, as well as to The Importance of Love and Friendship, as her fears and anxieties are confirmed, and those around her start to withdraw their support. Encountering Mak Sati, Mel expects support, likely because Vincent and Auntie Bee have been supportive, but Mak Sati scolds Mel for failing to come home after school. Mel notes that she speaks “in a voice completely devoid of enthusiasm” (154), foreshadowing her conversation with Pakcik Adnan. When Pakcik Adnan addresses Mel, she is already in the throes of fighting the Djinn, who urges her: “Tell him about your failure. Tell him how you let her die” (156). Pakcik Adnan confirms Mel’s worst fears, rather than dispelling them. He tells her, “So you left her to die,” and Mel reacts by defending herself, though his words “hit [her] like bullets” (158), as they reinforce the self-loathing she is already experiencing. This reversal from prior chapters continues as Vincent tries to cope with the attack on his home. Vincent continues his support of Mel’s struggle in the beginning of this chapter section, urging Jay to sing with him; however, he lashes out at Mel later, saying, “God, you’re a piece of work, Melati. You’re so bloody selfish, you know that?” (189), upset that Mel is preventing him from promptly going to Chin Woo Stadium. It is important to note that Vincent does not confirm Mel’s worst fears, as she is most afraid of Vincent thinking she is irrational, but the accusation of selfishness targets the anxiety and self-loathing Mel feels the same way Pakcik Adnan’s comments did. Mel is already in a position of blaming herself for all the pain and suffering around her, and being called selfish layers onto her feelings of self-loathing, destroying the delicate balance of self-worth that Vincent formerly helped to build.
On the front of Race and Identity in a Society Divided Along Racial Lines, it appears that society was racially divided on individual and political levels long before the extreme violence of the 1969 riots. Vincent notes at Kampung Baru how “[o]n one side of the Batu Road, Chow Kit, full of Chinese people and the triad members that protect them,” is across from “Kampung Baru, the biggest Malay village in town, protected by Alang and his goons” (150). He then compares the riots to an “explosion […] in the dynamite factory” (150). Such a strong divide clarifies the existence of the gangs that extort the residents of these areas, as these gangs choose to fight one another along racial lines to “protect” their own people. This animosity adds to the influence of political and social racial divides on the construction of identity. When Vincent asks the guards for help and they refuse, he tells Mel it is “[b]ecause [he is] who [he is]” (171), internalizing the issue of race as one of fundamental selfhood. This perspective, shared by many characters in the text, is countered by characters like Uncle Chong, who tells Frankie even as he is injured by a Malay group attacking his home, “Aiya, don’t blame them lah, they don’t know any better, poor things” (187). He indirectly references the ways in which people internalize racial issues, lashing out in violence based on socially constructed views. In reality, both the Malay groups and the Chinese groups see themselves as protecting their own group, and were it not for the perception that other groups are endangering their own, they would not likely resort to violence to resolve this conflict. It is important to note that the relative emptiness of Stadium Nagara implies that Malay people are not being targeted as severely as Chinese people in the riots. Chin Woo is entirely full, representing a large number of families affected by the riots, while Stadium Nagara is emptier, implying that fewer families are affected.
