82 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth AcevedoWith the Fire on High
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. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 2, Chapters 92-107Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Savory”
Part 2, Chapters 92-107 Summary
Malachi chases after the boy who ran away with Emoni’s purse. He catches up to him, and the boy says that he and his siblings are hungry and must beg. Emoni is saddened by this story and gives him five euros. Emoni holds Malachi close, and they kiss and touch. Emoni is breathless with excitement, and she says that she “can’t remember Tyrone ever touching me like this” (319). They then head to a nearby bar. In the bar, there are Americans doing shots, but Emoni and Malachi avoid them. Emoni tells Malachi about how guys thought she was promiscuous after she got pregnant. She explains that she is still not ready for sex with him.
Amanda, Richard, and Leslie join Malachi and Emoni’s table. The others have been drinking heavily, and Leslie gets aggressive towards Emoni. Leslie throws up on her shoes, and they are all ordered out of the bar. Malachi and Emoni take the intoxicated and sick Leslie back to their host’s house. They manage to get Leslie into her bed, and Emoni puts the vomit-covered shoes into Leslie’s make-up bag. In “Boys Will Be,” Emoni reflects on her relationship with Tyrone and how he behaved kindly towards her at first but was neglectful after she became pregnant, even cheating on her. This is why she is wary of boys. The next morning, Leslie and Emoni have a proper conversation for the first time. Leslie admits she was jealous of Emoni and Malachi and says she does not “have anyone at home supporting or pushing me” (334).
In “Ready?,” Malachi and Emoni are alone at Malachi’s host’s apartment. Malachi reveals that he is a virgin, and they kiss and touch on the couch. Malachi tries to unbutton Emoni’s jeans, but she suggests that they wait before having sex.
On the last day in Spain, Emoni helps Chef Amadi with a marinade for pork. Amadi tells Emoni that she can come back again and cook in her kitchen and that “there is magic working in your favor” (344). That evening, Leslie and Emoni enjoy a meal cooked by their host, Mariana. They also listen to a beautiful song by Mercedes Sosa, who “sings about how everything changes” (346).
Arriving back at the airport from Spain, Emoni is being picked up by ’Buela’s friend, Mr. Jagoda. Emoni offers Leslie a lift with him, and she accepts. Emoni is overjoyed to see Emma and ’Buela again. After a meal with ’Buela, Emoni checks to find out whether she got into the colleges she applied for online. She finds rejections from three schools but an acceptance from the last one, Drexel. Emoni worries about whether she will be able to afford studying at Drexel. ’Buela tells her that when she was having time to herself, she was courting Mr. Jagoda, Joseph, who has asked her to move in with him. Emoni rings her father, Julio, to tell him that she was accepted at Drexel. He is happy for her, and she hears him crying over the phone. She tells him how nervous she is about it all.
Ms. Fuentes discovers that Emoni has gotten into Drexel, and she congratulates Emoni. Emoni reflects on the changes that are happening in her life but is reassured by Angelica, who remains a constant in her life. After picking up Emma early from daycare, Emoni meets a woman on the bus who is judgmental when she tells her that Emma is her daughter and not her sister. Emoni suspects the woman harbors certain stereotypes about young mothers.
Part 2, Chapters 92-107 Analysis
Emoni and Malachi’s new closeness reaches a climax on one of their last evenings in Spain after Emoni’s bag is snatched. The ensuing chase, during which Malachi catches the child who took the bag and returns it, allows Emoni to see him as a protecting figure. Afterward, they finally kiss, cementing the new status of their relationship. Although they still demur from having sex, Emoni has overcome her fear of romantic attachments to the opposite sex.
With high school coming to an end and college or work beckoning, Emoni and her classmates are leaving behind the comfortable world of childhood. They are now transitioning to the much more uncertain world of adult life. However, while this change is inevitable, how individuals respond to it is not. This is an issue tackled in the final 20 chapters of With the Fire on High. They explore what it means to become an adult and the difference between true maturity and its superficial, or socially prescribed, expressions.
Alcohol plays a key role in terms of the latter, as seen in the bar in Sevilla. For Leslie and Richard, drinking alcohol is supposed to consummate and symbolize the progress to adulthood made by news of college acceptances and rejections. However, they in fact demonstrate the opposite. Richard is falling asleep by the end of the evening, while Leslie drinks so much that she throws up on her shoes. It is not merely then that they prove their immaturity by not being able to handle alcohol. The problem is with the idea that consuming alcohol is seen as an essential or necessary rite of passage in the first place.
The novel is also critical of other so-called rites of passage. As Emoni says about sex, “It was like entering a world everyone talked about but no one knew how to explain, and all of a sudden, you’re allowed into the secret” (338). Sex was something done out of a desire to gain admittance to an aspect of the “adult” world rather than from a genuine desire for the experience itself. Like with alcohol, the problem with sex as a rite of passage is thus twofold. First, it seems to offer a cheap and easy way to achieve maturity. Instead of seeing sex as something, like drinking, that requires maturity, it deceptively suggests that sex makes one mature. It allows one to avoid the real struggles that more authentically mark one as mature, instead permitting the illusion of maturity based on a single act. Second, such rites of passage do not take account of the individual. They put pressure on individuals to do things they are not ready for or not suited to. They do not acknowledge that different people can find maturity in their own ways, based on their distinct personalities and situations.
In fact, this is precisely what Malachi realizes when he is with Emoni on one of their last days in Sevilla. They are kissing and discussing sex. Malachi says that “this isn’t about other people. We’re not here with other people. We’re here. Right now” (337-338). In other words, what teenage couples do, or do not do, should be up to them and what feels right for them. It should not be dictated by a social expectation about what they ought to be doing, or ought to have done, by a certain age. On the contrary, true maturity, Acevedo suggests, lies precisely in recognizing this and not bowing to outside convention. This is why Malachi can be a virgin and still be highly mature for his age. It is also why the decision to postpone sex is for them a sign of maturity.
Related Titles
By Elizabeth Acevedo
