Star-Crossed Lovers
From Romeo and Juliet to Tony and Maria to Aaron and Angela to Helga Pataki and Arnold, the theme of a romantic couple doomed by the fates to failure has been one of the most solid and dependable tropes of fiction. This idea fits as easily within Shakespearean tragedy as it does to forgotten moves of the 1970’s as it does to afternoon cartoon characters and it is on full display here. There is nothing original about the theme, of course (how could there be) but originality is definitely not the point. In fact, the whole point of pairing up a couple like Ellie and Miah is precisely to make readers recall the familiarity of all those precursors. The built-in mechanics of plot device allow pursuit of other tangential aspects of the theme without having to expend undue effort on exposition.
The Fluidity of Racism
Racism is generally presented as this monolithic entity in America where every situation is always exactly the same. This is even true when discussing the novel’s story itself on a broadly superficial term. To classify it merely as a story of interracial romance is far less attributive than calling it a star-cross romance because the racial component is more intricate than “interracial” might imply. For instance, feeling the pressure of racial expectations, Miah presents himself as simply another black kid from Brooklyn when actually his father is a successful filmmaker and his mother a successful writer. That both are new transfers to an elite academy in which Miah goes from a black-majority to a white-majority student population also significantly alters the state of the racial element in their romance. Racism is explored thematically through the devil that is in the details rather than the all-encompassing plot device mechanics of merely being an “interracial romance.”
Criminal Profiling
Although not really significant until the climax, the sudden and shocking violence of that climax—along with the narrative irony—serve to underscore the thematic significance of criminal profiling that has only become more relevant in the decades since the book’s publication as a result of more attention. That U.S. cops routinely profile young black men is no longer the dirty little secret or “black conspiracy theory” it used to be, but has become common knowledge and an accepted reality of law enforcement everywhere in America. The theme is important precisely because though the climax of the story is shocking, it is neither surprising nor unbelievable. No suspension of disbelief is required to accept that it is realistic to the core. More to the point: if the racial makeup of the couple were reversed, it would seem less realistic.
