King and the Dragonflies

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 17-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary

King’s father is silent as they walk down the streets of New Orleans. King fears his father will reject him as a son because he is gay. He starts to tell his father that he’s sorry for thinking he might be gay, but his father cuts him off. His father tells King he is angry at him but not because of the gay issue. He says he is furious that King lied to him and put Sandy at risk by helping to hide him in the bayou.

King asks his father, “You don’t care that I might be gay?” (233). His father responds that he doesn’t know what to think about that yet, but he tells King that he loves him. King tells his father, “I love you, too” (234). They watch the parade for a while, and then King slips away to meet Sandy at the Cathedral.

Sandy hugs King when they meet and tells him they should leave Louisiana right away before his father realizes he is missing. King tells Sandy that he can’t go to New York with him and that he should not go either. Sandy is upset and questions if King is really his friend. King insists he is Sandy’s friend and that’s why he is advising him not to go. He tells him, “Things can get better” (238). He suggests that Sandy can stay with him and his parents and that they can tell the truth about the abuse and keep him away from his father. Sandy shakes his head, unconvinced, and leaves.

King returns to his parents and Auntie Idris. He decides he must tell them the truth about Sandy.

Chapter 18 Summary

Sandy is found. King is afraid that Sandy will hate him for revealing the secret of his whereabouts to the adults. King tells his mother about Sandy’s bruises, and this time she believes that Sandy has been abused. She promises King that they will make sure Sandy is not returned to his father.

While reminiscing about Khalid, King tells his mother that Khalid once told him, “You don’t want anyone to think you’re gay, too, do you?” (264). King says if Khalid knew he was gay, he would hate him. His mother tells him that is not true because Khalid loved him “more than anything else” (264). She says Khalid was just scared for him and trying to protect him. She tells him, “I’m scared for you, too. Hard enough to be in this world with the color of your skin. You’re going to have it even harder now. I’m scared for you—but you’re so brave, King” (247).

Before he goes to bed, King tells his mother that he’s ready to see a therapist. He falls asleep and dreams that Khalid is walking beside him.

Chapter 19 Summary

As King heads back to school, he is afraid to face his friends because of the lies he told them. His father tells him that all he can do is apologize to them. His father then starts talking about how he feels about King being gay. He tells King, “It’s hard to start to think about you in a different way. […] I’ve got all these ideas of what it means to be gay. Everything I was told by my father, and my father was told before me, and I don’t know if it’s wrong or right, but I know I love you” (252).

King tells his father that it shouldn’t be so hard and that gay people suffer the same kind of prejudice as Black people do. Before he gets out of the car, he tells his father that he loves him, too.

King apologizes to Jasmine. When she asks him why he lied, he explains that he was scared that she wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore. He tells Jasmine, Breanna, and Anthony that he is gay, but decides not to tell Darrell and Camille because “not everyone needs to know” (257).

He hears the news that Sandy is back in town, but he is no longer living with his father. He is now living with his brother, Mikey, on the edge of town. Sheriff Sanders was arrested for abusing both Sandy and Mikey, and his badge was taken away. On his way home, he sees Sandy and waves at him. Sandy “nods his head back” (258) but keeps walking. However, King is convinced that they will eventually be okay.

In the bayou, King watches the dragonflies and thinks, “Khalid wasn’t a dragonfly. He wasn’t anything that I could touch or see. But he’s been with me all along. He’ll stay with me until the end of time” (258).

Chapters 17-19 Analysis

The lesson King learns in the final chapters is that it is all right to be himself and to be honest about who he is with others. Even though some people close to him do not understand him, they do not reject him. In the case of Jasmine, King also learns the value of an honest apology. He tells her the real reason he lied to her—that he was afraid of losing her friendship—and she accepts his apology.

The reader sees, too, the culmination of King’s father’s character development. Initially a proponent of toxic masculinity who encouraged his sons not to cry and who thought gay men could only be white, King’s father is changed both by his older son’s death, which teaches him the value of emotion and sensitivity, and by his younger son’s admission that he likes other boys. King’s father doesn’t understand it, pointing out generations of bias and toxic patterns, but he loves his son anyway. The author’s decision to have his character accept his son, even though his son’s identity is a mystery to him, is suggestive of real-life interactions between children coming out and their parents, who grew up in a more restrictive world. This realistic rendering is likely meant to encourage young readers who might find themselves identifying differently than their parents’ expectations. The message being that it’s okay if they don’t understand you; it’s enough for them to accept you.

King also realizes that he does not need to reveal his secret to everyone. He tells Jasmine, Breanna, and Tony that he is gay but chooses not to tell Camille and Darrell. Perhaps he is not as brave as Sandy, who told his father he was gay knowing he would be beaten, but his personal life is his private property, not the entire school’s. Not everyone needs to know the truth about him; the most important thing is that he now accepts the truth about himself.

In the end, King also accepts that Khalid is gone from this world: “Khalid wasn’t a dragonfly. He wasn’t anything that I could touch or see. But he’s been with me all along. He’ll stay with me until the end of time” (258). In other words, he realizes that Khalid exists now only in a spiritual form. Khalid will visit him in his dreams and continue to share memories and bits of wisdom about the universe.