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.
Character Analysis
Melati “Mel” Ahmad
Melati, or Mel, is 16 years old and the protagonist of the novel, as the narrative centers on her journey to find her mother and safety during the 1969 race riots in Kuala Lumpur. Her father passed away about a year before the events of the novel, during which time she developed a mental health condition, likely OCD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Prior to her father’s passing, Mel had a happy family life, praying with her father in the Muslim tradition and enjoying time with her mother, Salmah, and her best friend, Safiyah, or Saf. After her father’s death, Mel describes how she became possessed by a Djinn, or spirit, who maliciously shows her images of her mother’s death, reflecting her fear that her mother might die as well. As a Malay Muslim, Mel is automatically grouped with the majority Malay race during the riots, and she often is put in danger or becomes a point of contention during the riots. Critically, when Auntie Bee inaccurately tells the Chinese gang members that Mel is Eurasian, she is attempting to emphasize Mel’s indifference to, or separation from, the ongoing violence. Mel notes to Saf how she is not particularly invested in politics, and this remains true throughout the novel as Mel tries to avoid or resolve tension rather than engage with it directly.
Mel’s journey is a hero quest complicated by the different journeys she leads in the text, such as her coming of age, resolving her internal struggle with mental health, finding her mother, and achieving peace in her daily life. As a bildungsroman, or adolescent development novel, The Weight of Our Sky follows Mel during the critical turning point between childhood and adulthood, in which Mel needs to begin seeing herself as a responsible individual, standing up for herself and for those close to her. The Djinn complicates this process, as does the race riot, but the riots themselves can be viewed as the internal conflict between Mel and her Djinn, just as Mel’s mental health struggle can be seen as emblematic of the larger struggle in later 1960s Malaysia. As such, Mel plays a greater role in the narrative than simply being the protagonist and hero of the text, as she is the focal point of the novel’s understanding of both the process of growing up and the process of overcoming social stigmas and prejudices. The Djinn, who functions almost as a character of his own within Mel’s character, is both an expression of Mel’s mental health and an expression of the difficulties of adolescence, often encouraging self-doubt and self-loathing in Mel, feelings to which many teenagers can relate.
Vincent
Vincent is the primary love interest of the novel, as well as a close friend to Mel during the riots. Vincent simultaneously acts as a romantic interest, a friend, and a mentor to Mel—he helps her navigate the riots and incites Mel to develop the strength to fight her Djinn. Vincent’s age is unclear, but he is visiting home from college, making him likely between 17 and 20 years old. He is Frankie’s younger brother, the second son of Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong, and as such he is Chinese. Vincent is characterized as generous and caring, joining the Red Cross to help both Malay, Chinese, and other racial groups during the violence of the riots, leading Frankie to call him a “bleeding heart.” Later, he claims that he only left his home because of Mel, but this is likely an angry outburst rather than the truth. Instead, Vincent’s outburst seems to serve as an impetus for Mel to reevaluate the ways in which she can help those around her, contributing to Vincent’s role as one of Mel’s mentors alongside Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong. However, Vincent is only a mentor insofar as he guides Mel through the physical reality of the riots, helping her avoid danger while searching for her mother.
In the broader narrative, Vincent represents the possibility of romance between a Malay girl (Mel) and a Chinese boy like himself. This romance layers onto Mel’s conflict with Frankie and the assistance of Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong to show how individual experiences can outweigh broader social issues and trends. At the same time, Vincent is an exemplary individual in terms of his handling of the riots, in which he serves as a foil to Frankie by joining the Red Cross, helping Mel get home, and organizing the journey out of Kuala Lumpur to help his parents. Auntie Bee insists that Vincent was a happy child, and he did not seem to be affected as intensely by casual racism as Frankie, painting him as a person with a naturally forgiving and helpful disposition. In the end, Vincent remains friends with Mel, and a romance is unclear, but his involvement in Mel’s life indicates his willingness to move forward from the race riots, inviting a Malay family into his home and visiting them in theirs.
Frankie
Though Frankie is essentially the antagonist of the novel, he serves more as a representation of the true antagonist, which is racial anger and tension. Frankie is the older son of Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong, and he is Vincent’s older brother and foil. As a foil, Frankie is the opposite to Vincent in a number of ways, serving to contrast Vincent’s optimism and generosity with anger and resentment. Frankie grew up in the same environment as Vincent, but Auntie Bee notes how Frankie was hurt by the casual racism around him, influencing his growing resentment for Malay people and a Malay-dominated government. As a result, when the violence erupts in the 1969 riots, Frankie is eager to become involved with the bands of Chinese rioters killing and damaging Malay people and property. Frankie is the only violent character described first-hand in the novel, and he presents only the feelings of the Chinese rioters, who are largely angry at the ways in which their people have been overlooked and underappreciated by the Malaysian government and society.
The hole in Frankie’s characterization comes in his temporary pause on the violence, which he uses to escort Mel, Salmah, May, and Ethan to Vincent’s car. This scene emphasizes Frankie’s broader motivation, which is socially normalized racism against Chinese people rather than the hatred for Malay people that he usually clings to. In this moment, Frankie sees how Mel and her group are just individual people trying to survive a challenging situation, and he foregoes the violence long enough to ensure their safety before ultimately returning to the fight. After the riots, Frankie avoids Mel and her family, though this reaction is more typical of shame or embarrassment rather than resentment. Knowing the extent of the violence and knowing how Frankie reacts to the suffering of others, he is avoiding Mel’s family more because he is ashamed to have jumped at the chance to arbitrarily hurt Malay people than out of a lasting hatred for Malay families.
Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong
Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong share the archetype of the sage or mentor who guides the main character through a difficult situation or helps them on their journey. In terms of Mel’s mental health, neither Auntie Bee nor Uncle Chong are specifically helpful, even being added to the list of people Mel fears will be hurt. However, in discussions of the racial tensions in Malaysia during and before the riots, Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong present a balanced, peaceful perspective on the ongoing violence. Auntie Bee wants to help people, and she saves Mel despite knowing that Mel is Malay, much to Frankie’s irritation. Uncle Chong, Frankie notes, argues for the forgiveness of the rioters, even as he becomes their victim when their home gets raided by the rioters. Coming into the riots with an indifferent or ambivalent perspective on racial conflict, Mel sees Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong forgiving their offenders and moving forward despite the discrimination they have faced and continue to face, giving her a healthy and resolution-focused direction during the riots. Their role in the novel is predominantly to provide that perspective, both for Mel and the reader, showing that not all Chinese or Malay people were engaged in or supportive of the violence around them.
Following the violence, Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong visit Mel and Salmah and welcome the two into their home, displaying their earnest desire to transcend the racial tensions of their time. As mentors, Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong also offer Mel perspective on Frankie and Vincent, explaining how they differ and helping Mel uncover how she should approach each of them. As Mel interrupts the rioters, she invokes Auntie Bee as the reason to end the violence, telling Frankie how Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong saved her and using their example as a way to show peace and unity regardless of race. In a way, Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong emphasize the idea that older people in Malaysia at the time were not as invested in the racial violence as their younger counterparts, with Vincent joining the Red Cross and Frankie joining the rioters. Instead, Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong focus on safely providing shelter and food to their neighbors, making a smaller, but critical, difference in their own home. Auntie Bee and Uncle Chong still oppose the racism and politics that developed into the riots, though, and their easygoing demeanor could even be seen as stagnation or acquiescence to the flaws in their society.
