Born a Crime Themes

Languages

Trevor Noah discusses languages throughout Born a Crime. His mother, Patricia Noah, ensures that English is his primary language, and she teaches him Xhosa, her home language. Noah picks up several other languages from Patricia and on the streets. He uses language to bridge gaps between himself and others, sometimes showing people that he is more like them than they thought. He is able to calm down an aggressive person or negotiate between other people in a disagreement. Languages expand his circle of acquaintances and business associates and even allow him to survive in jail.

However, he shows that language differences are also one of the walls between different groups of people. Noah is able to use language to show people he is one of them. But people who only speak one language are forced into a role as outsider in every group but their own. With 11 official languages in South Africa, plus 11 additional promoted languages, there are naturally many language barriers that serve as permanent dividers between communities, particularly in rural areas. His story of being unable to speak to his prom date is as frustrating as it is amusing.

Belonging

Many of Noah’s stories in Born a Crime reflect on the awkwardness of adolescence. But they also show how the racist society into which he was born means he can’t possibly fit in as a member of any group. Despite his facility with language, Noah never truly belongs. He never has a home group where he is surrounded by people like himself. But most other mixed-race children are smuggled out of South Africa because their lives are unbearable. Noah is one of the few who remained, and he is constantly in situations where he needs to choose whether to identify with Black peers, Colored ones, or white ones.

Even Noah’s extended family treats him differently because he is a different color than they are. His parents can’t take him to the park. He isn’t permitted to play in the street with his cousins in a Black town. His grandmother is so horrified at the vivid bruising that shows up on Noah’s skin after a beating that she refuses to discipline him. Noah is usually alone and always different. He does find a niche where he is wanted, but it is in his business dealings in the lunch line, with CDs, and as a DJ. All of these roles he plays are in demand, and he is always with people. Yet he shows that connecting with people through business and having a home group, one where he truly belongs, are two completely different things.

Domestic Violence

Noah grows up in neighborhoods where violence is used as discipline and punishment for children and as a form of control. Although Patricia always makes sure he knows that her beatings are coming from a place of love, they are one form of domestic violence. Harsh physical discipline of children, including all Noah’s friends, is common in the neighborhoods where he lives.

Abel beats Patricia because she is too independent. A Tsonga, he is from such a patriarchal culture that in his home the women must bow when they greet a man. Patricia compares him to a “bird collector” who wants a traditional marriage, but with an independent woman he can dominate. When the police take Abel’s side after he beats Patricia, Noah decides that they are “men first, and police second.” Abel also uses violence to dominate Noah and remind him that Patricia’s first son is not his own. In an example of situational irony—in which the reader expects one thing to happen and instead discovers the opposite—Abel’s violence both causes Noah to walk away from his mother and brings about their reunion.