Miles Morales: Spider-Man

“Love is deed, papi. Not just fine phrases.”

Miles’s mother reminds him and his father about what it truly means to love someone. Love as a form of duty is a recurrent motif in the novel, and it is what helps Miles escape the Warden’s mind manipulation. This quote explains why Miles feels he needs to support his parents, meet his incarcerated cousin Austin, and see Alicia at the open mic event despite the potential consequences.

“So this was about you saving somebody, huh? Yeah, well, let me ask you something, Super Hero… Who’s gonna save you?”

The concept of “saving” is a recurring motif. Miles struggles with the idea of allowing bad things to occur and turning a blind eye to them; he feels it is his duty, as Spider-Man, to help those in need. Here, Miles’s father reminds him that, while he is a hero, he is also still a child.

“Miles rolled the mask down over his forehead, over his eyes. For a split second, darkness. Then he lined the holes so his vision cleared and continued stretching it over his nose, mouth, and chin. He looked at himself in the mirror. Spider-Man.”

Miles struggles with maintaining his dual identities. In this quote, Miles physically watches himself oscillate between the two parts of himself, the hero and the teenager. He views them as separate from each other; they do not coexist.

“It all made so much sense to him. Like how really tall people usually have really tall parents. Or how you can be predisposed to be an alcoholic if one of your parents is. Miles had what he always had considered complicated genetics: bad blood.”

Miles feels pressure from his family to make different choices than his father and Uncle Aaron. He struggles with the idea of legacy and expectations, a theme present throughout the novel. He feels trapped within his family’s legacy of violence and becomes frustrated when he is unable to meet the high expectations placed upon him. Miles doubts he can be good, and wonders if he has a choice in the matter at all.

“I am a vault, a safe locked by loyalty earned by few; / tell me your secrets, whisper them to me behind enemy backs; / I was born this way, a vault, and your secrets will die when I do.”

Poetry is a recurring motif; this medium helps characters express their complex thoughts and emotions in a way that they are unable to in conversation. Ganke wrote a sijo, a type of Korean poem, for Miles about his identity as Spider-Man. The sijo displays Ganke’s loyalty to Miles and shows just how deep their friendship is.

“You know what they call me every time I go in that barber shop? Baby Einstein. Smarty Arty. Stuff like that. And they smile and give me a hookup on cuts. They ask me about girls, of course, but they also ask me about my grades. My uncle used to do the same thing.”

When confronted about his plan to stop being Spider-Man, Miles reflects on the expectations placed on him by his community in Brooklyn. He thinks of his parents, neighbors, and peers, all of whom have an idea of who he should be and what he should do. Miles wants to live up to these academic expectations, but his duty as Spider-Man has gotten in the way of this.

“To have the time to be a Super Hero, you have to have the rest of your life laid out. You can’t be out there saving the world when your neighborhood ain’t even straight.”

The concept of community and the neighborhood plays a significant role in the novel. The community one belongs to—in Miles’s case, Brooklyn and Brooklyn Visions Academy (BVA)—represents the start of one’s life and has great influence over it. Miles contemplates how he can be a hero when he can’t even help his own community. He is overwhelmed by guilt and duty toward his community that has loved and supported him since he was young.

“Miles had been to this place before. He knew it in the way he knew his own home. But this was far from home. Pillars the size of trees in fantasy forests. White stone. Marble. Big wooden door with a brass ring in the middle. Castle entrance.”

Jason Reynolds uses imagery to depict Miles’s disoriented dream. His choice to use concise sentences emphasizes Miles’s cursory observations of this dream world, noting details with almost a detached curiosity. This choice also builds tension, putting the reader on edge.

“Miles was certain that, even though his uncle didn’t intentionally plant the spider, it was obviously special, which meant the bite was special, which meant there was a good chance that Miles would also be special. No longer a regular boy.”

The pressure of expectations weighs heavily on Miles as he reflects on his transformation into Spider-Man. Reynolds uses repetition to emphasize the bitterness Miles feels toward the idea that his powers make him special. By gaining his powers, Miles loses his ability to have a normal life as a teenager.

“When you fight your uncle to the death, it’s hard to shake it… It’s hard to keep it a secret. A secret that seems to seep into everything—your immediate family, your school, your sleep. Ganke knew, because Ganke knew everything, but that didn’t stop the constant loop from playing over and over again in Miles’s head.”

Guilt over his uncle’s death eats away at Miles. Reynolds personifies the word secret, making it move and infect everything in its path. This image helps the reader understand just how much his guilt has impacted his daily life and dreams.

“But Miles wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He wanted to, but all the cool he thought he had was currently balled up into a spandex mess in his closet.”

Miles contemplates talking to his crush Alicia and telling her that he enjoyed her poem. This quote again shows that Miles has separated his identity as Miles Morales from Spider-Man, despite them being the same person. To Miles, Miles Morales is a good student and son, while Spider-Man is cool and brave.

“But before he could call out to Mr. Chamberlain—who could never see raised hands because his eyes were always closed—Miles lowered his hand. Then brought it up to his temple. His head was buzzing… The buzzing will go away…Buzz. Buzz.”

Reynolds repeats the onomatopoeia “buzz” to indicate how overwhelming and unpleasant Miles’s spidey-sense, an indicator of danger, can be when it acts up. It shows how helpless Miles is in the situation, making the reader sympathetic, and it also hints at Mr. Chamberlain being the threat in question.

“I know. Just figured it was worth a shot since you keep acting like your Super Hero days are over. Since you’ve decided people don’t need saving no more. And I feel you, why should you be responsible for looking out for so many strangers just because you have superhuman strength?”

As a character, Ganke functions as Miles’s regulator; he encourages the childhood that Miles doesn’t allow himself to have, preventing him from overworking himself. In other words, Ganke is a main pillar of support. He does not hold Miles to expectations beyond what he knows Miles is capable of.

“Whenever Miles thought about this, he pictured his mother and father crammed up in the dorm with him and Ganke, his mother trying to microwave plátanos on Sundays.”

Reynolds depicts what it would be like if Miles’s family had to live with him in his dorm. The image shows how guilty Miles feels about his parents’ struggling financial situation, and motivates him to work hard to meet their expectations.

“Miles scribbled and scratched out, scribbled and scratched out, over and over again trying to find the right words, the right count. And what he landed on, what he finally came up with, he hated. Ugh. A poet would have a better grasp on language. A better understanding of how to put words together to at least communicate a coherent idea.”

Miles, unlike Ganke and Alicia, can’t seem to form his emotions into words that feel right. Words always seem to fail Miles, while actions allow him to display what he means. This quote also references the academic expectations placed upon Miles, who is expected to be a genius.

“It frustrated him that he could wrestle with monsters ten times his size, but not get his mouth to cooperate whenever he was in her presence.”

Miles uses hyperbole, an exaggeration, to emphasize the frustration he feels over not being able to articulate his feelings. This quote again displays the strength of Spider-Man (through heroic actions), but also the weakness of Miles Morales (who struggles with words).

“This part of my family is also a part of me. The same fearlessness that led them to crime is what leads me to excellence.”

In Miles’s letter to the BVA scholarship team, he juxtaposes his family’s history and his own future. He places two opposing images of fearlessness together—his father and uncle’s life of crime and his academic goals—to create a more impactful promise to the dean about his plans for the future.

“He didn’t pay attention to where he was going, just tried to remember what it felt like to fly. What it felt like to fall knowing he wouldn’t actually hit the ground.”

This quote is an allegory, a story that represents something else. Miles talks about flying—a metaphor for success—and how he wants to know what it feels like to be able to fall—to fail—without actually hitting the ground. The “ground” is Miles’s definition of failure: letting his community down and causing his parents financial hardship.

“Miles passed the dog walkers, walking both pit bulls and poodles. People coming in and out of the corner bodega, the bell chiming over and over again. Fashion folks draped in the latest trend snapping pictures in front of a sky-blue, rusted-over car. The one that used to be a home for someone. A man that was no longer there.”

This quote captures a moment in Miles’s neighborhood. People like the dog walkers and fashionistas display the diversity of the community’s socioeconomic status. The final image—an old, rusted car that used to be a home for a homeless man—is stark against the jovial nature of the rest of the community. It emphasizes the lack of sympathy that society displays toward people who are struggling.

“You believe that you can really save people. Superpowers don’t belong to branches that come on a tree like yours. Because your tree is rotten at the roots. You, my man, are meant to be chopped down.”

In Miles’s dream, Mr. Chamberlain uses a metaphor of a tree and its branches to depict his feelings about Miles and his family. He plays with the theme of legacy, stating that Miles’s (family) tree has rotten “roots” and that they automatically make him part of a larger problem (which is Miles’s greatest fear).

“There’s always more to the story, right? I mean, a name, whether good or bad, is never just a name. There’s always something behind it. Something more to it.”

Reynolds uses a literary device called synecdoche, in which one part of an object, concept, or person is used to represent the whole. In this case, Miles questions the validity of names as representing the people they belong to. This thought relates to Miles’s struggle with Legacy and the Predisposition to Evil.

“I don’t blame nobody for my life but me. But I’ll tell you what, for some of us, school is like a tree we get to hide in. And at the bottom of it is a bunch of dogs. Them dogs are bad decisions. So when people shake us out of that tree for no reason, it becomes a lot easier to get bit.”

Mr. Davis’s friend Sip uses simile (dogs’ being bad decisions) and metaphor (being “fed” to life’s “dogs”) to explain his life to Miles. This combination of literary devices illustrates the complex issues of disenfranchised children today, as it is easy to make bad decisions when one is vulnerable.

“Still, Miles couldn’t help but think about his father telling him that he was responsible for his block, and that being a hero wasn’t always just the big things, but also the small things, like picking up trash. Miles stood up and walked over to one of the guys.”

Miles feels tensions begin to rise between his two identities as he prepares to confront the Warden and his army of Chamberlains. The theme of community lingers in Miles’s mind and acts as a bridge between his two separate identities: Miles Morales, who wants to help his neighborhood and school, and Spider-Man, who wants to save people in general. In their love for others, Miles’s two identities find common ground and work simultaneously within him.