50 pages • 1 hour read
Dave EggersWhat Is The What
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaBook 2, Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 2
Chapter 16 Summary
Deng and Achor Achor wait at the hospital. Julian, an African-American man, checks Deng in and tells him that the hospital will treat him, regardless of insurance. They wait for a while, and decide to call another of the Lost Boys, Lino. They tell him that they are at the hospital and Lino comes to join them in the waiting room, much to Deng’s chagrin. Lino is about to take a trip back to Kakuma to find a wife, something that has become increasingly popular among the Sudanese refugees. Deng thinks about Tabitha, and the wedding they might have had.
When Tabitha had first moved to Seattle, she began dating a Sudanese man. The man turned out to be abusive and unpleasant, and Tabitha began talking often with Deng. She asks Deng if he would like her to visit him; two weeks later, she arrives in Atlanta, and they begin falling for each other. “The moment she took my shoulders in her hands, when we faced each other square--so close it was difficult to look straight into her perfect face—we were as man and wife” (249). Tabitha’s ex-boyfriend, Duluma, phones Deng in order to insult Tabitha, calling her a whore and saying she had aborted their baby over his objections.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, Achor Achor reads about Darfur and the people there. Deng tires of waiting and calls his old friend, Deb, the widow of his benefactor, Bobby. She gets on the phone with Julian at the front desk, but it makes no difference, and they continue to wait.
Chapter 17 Summary
Ethiopia is a huge disappointment to the Lost Boys. It is, however, safe enough for them to rest. Valentino learns to fish and meets Achor Achor, who quickly becomes his closest friend. The camp is organized, with groups of boys being put together, and Deng becomes the leader of a group of twelve, with Achor Achor as his second-in-command. Deng starts as a water boy, but then becomes the youngest boy on burial duty for the increasing number of dead bodies. He also meets a woman named Ajulo, who treats him as a son, and although he is tempted to stay with her, he does not: “To stay would mean I would abandon the hope of returning home. To accept this woman as my mother would be to deny my own, who might yet be living, who might wait for me the rest of her years” (265). Dut expresses sadness that Deng is burying bodies instead of being in school, and wishes it were different for the boys.
One day, while washing his shirt in the river, Deng’s old fried Moses appears beside Deng. Deng cannot believe his eyes. Moses did not die the day he was attacked by the murahaleen; instead, he was taken and sold as a slave but got away.
A white man comes to the camp, which is shocking to the boys, many of whom have never seen a white person before. Soon, more white people begin to show up, many of them aid workers from all over Africa, and with them come supplies and food. Some of the boys discuss leaving and going back to Sudan, but Dut angrily chastises them, explaining that there is nothing to go back to. Father Matong, the priest who baptized Deng, comes to the camp, and explains that he gave Deng the name Valentino after his favorite saint. Matong tells Deng that like the saint, Deng “will have the power to make people see. I think you will remember what it was like to be here, you will see the lessons here. And someday, you will find your own jailer’s daughter, and to her you will bring light (287).
Chapter 18 Summary
In Atlanta, Deng continues to wait for treatment at the hospital. Achor Achor’s phone rings. Ajing, another Lost Boy, is calling them to tell them the war has begun again, but then quickly calls back to tell them this is not the case. Deng wishes Tabitha was with him. He considers how fickle and unpredictable she is, having sent him three very different emails in the same week about her feelings. He believes that she wants to know he is pining for her, and wishes to be pursued.
Deng remembers when the schools in the camp were finally completed; the boys had to build themselves. Other aspects of life at the camp were improving, with more clothes and food coming in from other countries and aid programs. Girls were soon brought in to attend classes; four of them were known as the Royal Nieces of Pinyudo, and they were the nieces of the teacher Mister Kondit. All the boys are very interested in the sisters, and Deng gets to know them better than anyone through showing off his intellect and work ethic in school. His friends make fun of him. Deng ends up playing with and experimenting sexually with the girls. At first he is very nervous, because he is circumcised, which is unusual in his culture. Their relationship remained intact for much of the year.
Book 2, Chapters 16-18 Analysis
The dichotomy between perception and reality in What Is The What is shown through Deng’s perceptions of and experiences with various other characters. In Chapter 15, Deng finally gets a chance to speak with the police about the robbery. The officer who comes by takes little interest in his situation, taking a few cursory notes and doing little else. Deng feels like he’s condescended to. Similarly, when Deng was pulled over by the police previously, he was yelled at and talked to like a petulant child, with the officer repeating “Do you want to go to jail? Do you? Do you?” every time Deng tried to speak (233). The officer taking his statement about the robbery only pays attention when Deng mentions Darfur, having heard more about that region of Africa in the media. She hands him a complaint card and leaves. This is similar to how Deng felt earlier in the book, when the police were parked in the lot just outside while Powder beat Deng. For Deng, law enforcement in America is unhelpful and indifferent. This is very different from his experiences with law enforcement in Sudan, which alternately either tried to kill him and his people or gave them just enough aid to assuage their guilt and fulfill their perceived duty on the world stage.
These chapters also show how Tabitha is very different from the stereotypical Sudanese woman. In Sudanese culture, women are supposed to be subservient and obedient to their male head of household. Most girls are married off very young, and have little chance to escape their fate. Tabitha is uncommon, in that she’s able to pursue an education and has an independent streak that makes her at once irresistible and frustrating to Sudanese men. Ultimately, her actions anger her ex-boyfriend, who cannot stand to lose face by allowing her to do what she wants and leave him. He snaps, making up all sorts of insults and lies about her, because his cultural background is so regressive in regard to gender equality. Eventually, unable to live with his perceived loss of status, he murders her.
Deng notes the difference, too, between American and Sudanese cultures, and how Sudanese men have so much trouble adjusting to the reality of being American, when they have been so differently socialized.
Deng sees his first white person as a young man, and his experiences in the camp in Ethiopia lead to some gaps between perception and reality. There is evidence of internalized racism, with the elders telling the boys that African Americans will hurt or steal from them. This is reinforced by the almost religious reverence that the refugees hold for the white people they meet. Since white people are rare for the boys to see, meeting one was an experience that made an impact, but two very different explanations were given to the youth. Dut used an approach based in history and reality, explaining that the white men were there for the oil resources, but also to help people who are oppressed. The priest says that white people are closer to God than their own people, cementing the internalized racism and sense of inferiority that many Africans feel:
The white man is a close descendant of Adam and Eve, you see. You have seen the pictures of Jesus in your books, have you not? Adam and Eve and Jesus and God all have such skin. They are fragile, their skin burning in the sun, because they are closer to the status of angels. Angels would burn in a similar way if placed on earth. This man, then, is here to deliver messages from God (282).
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