42 pages • 1 hour read
Samira AhmedInternment
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 22-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 22-27 Summary
At the Mess, Layla at her assigned table notes the Red Cross observers and the press corps watching the meal’s smooth operations. When her table number is called, however, no one moves. In a loud voice, Soheil stands and speaks, “We’re protesting the illegality of Mobius. We’re protesting the violation of the civil rights of the Muslim community. We want the world to know that there are internees who have been tortured and disappeared. Here. On American soil. We are being held without cause or trial” (243).
The Director, raging over this insubordination and forgetting the observers, punches Soheil viciously in the mouth. The Mess erupts in chaos. To control the crowd, fire alarms are tripped and the sprinklers go off. That only increases the confusion. As Layla stumbles outside, emergency vehicles pull up and helicopters descend. From the chaos, Jake emerges and steers Layla back to her trailer. When her parents finally return, they lecture Layla about such foolish antics, calling the protest irresponsible and futile. They literally turn their backs on her, giving her the cold shoulder: “I wish I could make my parents understand, persuade them to speak up, act out” (252).
The next day, in an unscheduled morning camp assembly, the Director announces new stringent rules to better control the camp. The message is clear to Layla and her friends: Do not step out of line. The Director dismisses the “foolish actions” of these “stupid kids” (256) in an attempt to turn the camp against Layla and her friends. Layla is more concerned about where Soheil is. As the meeting disperses, Layla feels a chunk of dirt hit her head, lobbed she assumes by one of the internees.
Days pass. Layla, along with her friends, attend to their assigned duties in the camp garden. It has been five days since the fast. Rumors suggest that Soheil, under the care of the Red Cross, was taken to a hospital off-site, but his condition is unclear. Meanwhile, the number of protesters outside the main gate grows. Layla reasons that the camp has made its way into a national debate. She also receives unexpected support from some internees, particularly young girls. When Jake unexpectedly shows up, he tells her the Director wants to see her. Layla is chilled over the prospect. In his office, in front of Red Cross observers, the Director accuses Layla of fomenting the protests but offers her the chance to act as an informant to help quiet the camp. Layla refuses. Rebuked, the Director snarls that Layla will not always have the Red Cross to protect her, adding that the press will tire of the story and then she and her family will be at the camp “for a good long time” (272).
Certain that they need to act swiftly, Layla goes to Ayesha with a new plan: On a signal, internees will stand up at the Mess and head to the main gate and stand, fists in the air, as a silent protest within sight of the press and their cameras. The gesture would signal they are “standing up to oppression and racism” (278). Layla knows the plan is risky, but they have no choice: “They can kill us while we sit around quietly and do nothing” (280). They need a distraction to allow the internees to leave the Mess. One of Layla’s friends says they know someone who works in the kitchen and can cut the lights using a utility box. That would give them enough time to head to the gate.
The next day, Layla notices that the camp is settling into a routine. This shows what happens when people surrender to immoral authority. It is time to resist. In a quiet moment with Jake, who hints about his attraction to Layla, he shares the story behind his compass tattoo. When he was a boy, his mother, an avid hiker, took him to the mountains in Oregon and showed him how to use a compass to find True North. But she told him, “A compass doesn’t tell you where you are, and it doesn’t tell you where you have to go. It can only point you in a direction. It’s up to you to always find your True North” (287).
The next night at Mess, Layla awaits the protest. She rallies a scared Ayesha, telling her, “Hope is all we got right now” (292). The lights suddenly go out. Chaos erupts as the guards try to maintain order. The internees stand up and, in the dark, head out into the night and to the main gate. There, they line up and raise their fists even as the guards pull individuals out of line, punching and kicking them. Supporters outside the fence cheer. Among them, Layla sees, are both David and Soheil. An agitated Soheil wants to join his friends in the protest. He moves to climb the fence, which he assumes is no longer electrified. But the fence is still hot, its power coming from a separate generator. As soon as he jumps to grab the fence, “soaring toward eternity” [298), Layla hears a sickening sizzle and crackle, and Soheil drops lifeless to the ground, “his beautiful, broken body” (298) twitching helplessly. Layla can only watch.
Overwhelmed, Layla heads through the chaos back to her trailer. She cannot forget the sight of Soheil’s body and vomits in disgust. When her parents return, they do not reprimand her. They pray together and hold Layla tight, a moment of support shattered by the arrival of four armed guards, one of whom says, “Layla Amin, the Director requests your presence in his office” (302).
Chapters 22-27 Analysis
These sections are bookended by two moments between Layla and her parents that define her evolution into a true freedom fighter. Initially, the fast Layla, Soheil, and Ayesha organize in the Mess Hall to alert the Red Cross alienates Layla. She expects the other Muslim internees to rally to the cause when they see the courage of the kids standing up to oppression. But Layla learns the difficult lesson that every revolutionary who inspires her—whether Joan of Arc, Gandhi, or Malcolm X—has each learned: It is difficult to create solidarity, and painful to be rejected by one’s own people.
After the Mess Hall fiasco, Layla is ostracized by much of the Muslim community. She is even pelted with dirt. But it is her parents’ disapproval, their shaming over her foolish risks, and their blindness to the reality of what the camp represents that mark the low point in Layla’s evolution: “My parents turn their backs on me, shuffle into the room, and shut the door” (251). Layla struggles to put into words what she wants to tell her parents, as she tries to make them understand the urgency of the cause she passionately embraces. They need to understand her decision to “speak up, act out” and not just wait “until someday we are magically released and the president isn’t some raging fascist” (252).
Jake Reynolds provides the necessary link in Layla’s evolution. As Jake explains his tattoo and the need for each person to find their “true north,” Layla realizes she must break with her parents. Although she does not dispute or rejects them, she understands that this is her cause. She cannot let her parents’ timidity and their calculated strategy for getting along deter her from what she must do: close the camp.
The Director’s sneering taunt as their conversation ends motivates Layla to act now: the Director reminds her that long after the Red Cross leaves, and long after the protesters outside gates go home, she and her family will still be in the camp. As Layla looks about the camp the next morning, she is sickened to see how the detainees are going about their business as if this camp was normal: “The most chilling aspect here is the automatic feel to it all…like we’re all fucking produce in a grocery store” (283). It is a chilling thought that sets her ambition—“[t]o resist” (284)—and compels her to organize what will be the novel’s most tragic moment.
Soheil’s death shows Layla the high price paid for resistance. Driven by his fierce commitment to the internees he left behind and determined to rejoin them to help them in their cause, Soheil, careless of his well-being, attempts to climb the fence to get back into the camp. He assumes, as Layla did, that when the lights were killed in the Mess Hall the fence was deactivated. She watches as Soheil flings himself up on the fence: “A hum and a crackle. A sickening buzz. A bone-shattering scream” (298). The death of Soheil dramatically alters Layla’s perception of the resistance movement: “Bile rises in her throat” (299). She is not afraid any longer—she is angry. Her vomiting signals she is purging herself of her fears.
When she returns to her trailer, Layla receives the unexpected support of her mother and father: “My mother drapes her arms around my shoulder as my dad pats my knee” (302). That tableau closes the section that began with her parents turning their backs on their rebel daughter.
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By Samira Ahmed
