Key Themes & Exam Technique
The Play’s Key Themes
Refugee Boy explores several interconnected themes, all rooted in the experience of seeking asylum. In your modern-text essay, you will typically be given a short quotation and asked to write an essay in response. Strong essays do not just discuss events — they analyse how themes are presented across the play. This lesson covers the major themes and shows you how to write about them effectively under exam conditions.
Home and Belonging
The question of what constitutes “home” runs through every scene. For Alem, home is not a single place but a series of lost and temporary spaces: Ethiopia (where he was born but is no longer safe), the hotel (where he last saw his father), the Fitzgeralds’ house (where he finds warmth but not permanence), and England itself (a country that may or may not accept him). The play asks whether belonging is about geography, relationships, legal status, or something deeper.
Sissay presents belonging as something that must be actively created, not passively received. Alem belongs at the Fitzgeralds’ house because they choose to welcome him. He belongs at school because Mustapha chooses to befriend him. But the asylum system can override all of these personal connections with a single ruling. The play argues that belonging should be a human right, not a bureaucratic decision.
In Refugee Boy, “home” is not a fixed place but a feeling of safety, acceptance, and connection. The play argues that belonging is a human need, and that denying it through hostile policies or racism causes profound harm.
Identity
Alem’s identity is fractured by his circumstances. He is Ethiopian by his father, Eritrean by his mother, and living in England. Each of these identities is partial — Ethiopia and Eritrea reject him for his mixed heritage, and England sees him as an outsider. The play explores how identity is constructed by others as much as by the individual: Alem is the same person regardless of which country he is in, but he is treated differently depending on who is defining him.
Prejudice operates at multiple levels in the play. At the personal level, Sweeney’s racism represents the hostility that individuals direct at those who look or sound different. At the institutional level, the asylum system’s cold procedures represent a form of structural indifference that treats human beings as cases to be processed. At the societal level, the hostile media portrayals of refugees that Zephaniah wrote against represent the way prejudice is manufactured and normalised.
Sissay does not present prejudice as the failing of a few bad individuals. By showing it operating at personal, institutional, and societal levels, he argues that it is a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions. The play challenges the audience to recognise all three forms.
Family
Family in Refugee Boy is both the source of deepest love and the site of deepest loss. Mr Kelo’s sacrifice shows that a parent’s love can be powerful enough to separate a family. Mrs Kelo’s death shows that family can be destroyed by forces beyond anyone’s control. The Fitzgeralds show that family is not only biological — it can be chosen, created, and extended to strangers. The play asks what family means when the traditional structures have been shattered by war and displacement.
The play redefines family beyond biology. The Fitzgeralds become Alem’s family through choice and compassion, showing that family is about care and commitment rather than blood. This challenges the audience to think about who they consider “family” and “community.”
Justice and Injustice
The asylum tribunal is the play’s central symbol of justice — but the play questions whether the system truly delivers it. The tribunal follows legal rules, but those rules cannot fully account for human suffering. Alem’s situation is the result of injustice (the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict, persecution of mixed-heritage families), and the asylum system is supposed to provide a remedy. But the process itself can feel unjust: cold, impersonal, and arbitrary. The play does not offer a simple answer. Instead, it asks the audience to consider what real justice would look like for someone in Alem’s position.
Resilience is presented not as a dramatic, heroic quality but as a quiet, daily act. Alem gets up every morning, goes to school, makes friends, and faces the tribunal. He does not give up, even when his situation seems hopeless. Sissay presents this ordinary endurance as profoundly admirable. The play’s message is not that suffering makes people stronger (a harmful cliché), but that human beings have a remarkable capacity to survive and adapt when given even a small amount of support and kindness.
Hope in Refugee Boy is cautious, not naive. The ending does not promise that everything will be fine. It promises that Alem will keep going, and it asks the audience to contribute to a world where people like Alem are given the chance to thrive. This is political hope — it requires action, not just feeling.
Exam Technique: Writing About Themes
For a modern-text essay, you will typically receive a short quotation and a choice of essay questions. The exam is closed book, so you must memorise key quotations and moments. Check your exam board’s specimen paper for the exact format and mark allocation. Here is how to structure a strong response:
Step 1: Engage with the quotation. Begin by analysing the language of the given quotation. What words are significant? What dramatic technique is used? What is the context of the scene?
Step 2: Explore the theme across the play. Do not limit yourself to the quoted scene. Show how the theme develops from the opening scenes through to the ending. Use specific examples from different parts of the play.
Step 3: Embed context throughout. Weave contextual knowledge into your analysis — Zephaniah’s purpose, the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict, British attitudes to asylum seekers, Sissay’s background. Do not write a separate context paragraph; link context to every analytical point.
Step 4: Analyse dramatic techniques. Discuss how themes are presented through staging, direct address, dual narrative, ensemble playing, and other techniques. This shows you understand the play as theatre, not just text.
Step 5: Write precisely. Credit goes to accurate spelling, punctuation, grammar, and confident use of specialist vocabulary. Use terms like ‘juxtaposition’, ‘dramatic irony’, ‘direct address’, ‘ensemble’, and ‘dual narrative’ accurately.
The exam is closed book. You must memorise key quotations before the exam. Choose short, versatile quotations that can be used across multiple themes. For example, a quotation about Alem’s isolation could be used in essays about belonging, identity, or prejudice.