78 pages • 2 hours read
Steve PembertonA Chance in the World
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2012A 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 Search for Belonging and a Sense of Home
When Willie and Betty meet Steve for the first time, they are kind to him in front of the social worker. Steve believes this is his new home, a place where he is wanted. Being wanted and included are central to Steve’s concept of what a home is: “A place where the family actually wanted to keep me” (10). Steve longs for parental figures who provide him with care and validation, however, his hopes are soon dashed when the Robinsons reveal their abusive nature.
When he visits John Sykes’s family, it is the first time he has seen a picture of himself hung on someone’s wall. This gesture touches him, though he realizes that living with the Sykes is only temporary, and he has not yet found his home. Later, when Steve is in college, he feels more involved and a part of something bigger, but the holidays remind him that he is alone, with no family or home.
When he learns about his siblings, home becomes more of a concept than a place. He can share a genetic bond with his siblings even though he won’t be living with them. However, the family is divided and they fail to stay in touch. It’s not until Steve meets and marries Tonya that he experiences the sense of what he has thought of as home. Tonya wants to be with him, and she shares his successes and frustrations. When they have children, Steve finally has what he has always wanted, searched for, and hoped for. The family of his past could never provide a home for him; the family he creates can.
Identity, Race, and Racism
As a child, Steve does not have an identity independent of whether people want him or not. Therefore, he sees himself as unwanted: He is not a son, or a brother, or a friend. In Chapter 2, he looks at himself in the mirror, trying to understand his appearance. He does not know if he is black, only that he doesn’t look like anyone else he knows. Rather, his skin is “very fair—not white, but close” (5).
Steve’s identity as an African American evolves during college, where fellow classmates ask him, “What are you, exactly?” (114). After he reads about W.E.B. Du Bois, he becomes more secure with his heritage. His foundational knowledge of the African diaspora grows, and he is no longer uncomfortable asserting his ethnicity. His interaction with Joni is the first time in a long time that he is confronted with something unpleasant concerning his race. Even though they share an identity as siblings, Joni does not want anything to do with him after their initial meeting, based solely on his race.
The theme of identity dovetails with the theme of race, and racism plays an important role in the book. The 1970s racial tension resulted in riots in New Bedford and other places. Kenny attributes his downward spiral to the racially biased boxing decision at the Golden Gloves. When Ben and Steve debate Affirmative Action, it is a reminder that some issues can only be discussed in the context of race, no matter how openminded and colorblind people might think they are. At Steve’s graduation, the speaker refers to the 500,000 homeless children in America whose only crime was being born poor. Black neighborhoods are often poorer than others, and the presence of drugs and crime-related violence like those that took hold of Kenny can be a result.
The most positive and relevant aspect of race presented in the book is that Steve embraces his African American heritage. He takes pride in knowing his history and encourages others to do the same. His attempts to convince Joni that one black man’s actions do not suggest anything about an entire ethnic group do not convince her, but he knows he must try.
The Evolution of the Meaning of Family
Throughout the book, the notion of what a family is, or can be, changes. As a child, Steve identifies family and home as living in a place with people who want you. He believes that finding his biological family will make him happy and fill the void caused by his parents’ abandonment. Meeting his siblings does not fill the void, although it answers some questions. Learning the identities and histories of his parents satisfies his curiosity but does not necessarily improve Steve’s life.
The Sykeses treat Steve as if he is family, even hanging a picture of him on the wall. The custodial crew accepts him, and his brothers in the fraternity celebrate him with an award. However, Steve does not feel as if he truly belongs to anyone until he meets Tonya and they have their own children. His notion of family was idyllic. At the two cemetery scenes, he acknowledges that the story of any family must have light and dark aspects. There is no such thing as a perfect family, if family means a group of genetically bonded people who never experience hardships because of their relation.
The graduation speaker’s statistic of the 500,000 homeless children is also a reminder of how many children like Steve there are. Marian’s abandonment created suffering in the lives of her children, and those 500,000 children might experience the same. Not everyone who is raised without a family will be as well-adjusted as Steve becomes.
