Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beautiful Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Addiction, Ruin, and Redemption
Responsibility and Blame
Parenthood and Control
Support vs. Enabling
The Disease Model, Stigma, and Treatment
Summary
Analysis
In June, Nic is not at Jasper and Daisy’s step-up ceremony. David watches the ceremony, in which each class year “steps up” from the step they are sitting on to the next higher row, indicating that they have graduated to a new grade. David has tears as he watches, remembering when Nic, too, was standing tall, full of potential.
The similarity between Nic’s past and Jasper and Daisy’s present illustrates how much potential Nic has lost in the intervening years. David’s tears relay his continued understanding of the idea that each child is so vulnerable to tragedy, and there is very little that he can do to control their futures.
Themes
Every time the phone rings, David grows anxious, wondering if it is Nic calling. David wonders where he could be. Meanwhile, at Nancy and Don’s house, Nancy is shocked to discover Nic sleeping in her laundry room under a pile of blankets. He is clearly high, shaking and skeletal. Nic wakes, startled to find himself in Nancy’s home, and apologizes. Nancy, also shaken, offers Nic food. Nic takes a banana from the kitchen and walks out of the house. Nancy calls David to tell him what happened, wishing she could have made Nic stay.
Over the next stretch of chapters, the effect of Nic’s addiction will not only stretch over David, Karen, Jasper, and Daisy, but also over many of the other people whom Nic has known throughout his life. Nic is paving a path of destruction, and he deliberately shutters himself from all of the people who could be giving him support.
Themes
There is no news for another week, until Nic calls his godfather, who invites Nic to his house. Nic’s godfather makes him food and begs Nic to get help, seeing his gaunt appearance. Nic lies that he’s stopped using and leaves. Again, David calls hospitals and jails, but there’s no news for another two weeks. One day, Karen comes in and hands David a canceled check made out from David to Nic. The signature is an obvious forgery. Karen is furious and hurt. David tries to say that Nic wouldn’t do this if he were in his right mind, but Karen doesn’t want to hear excuses.
Again, Nic’s self-destruction makes casualties of other people. He is more and more blatant about his drug use, shocking those around him who have known him for years. He even begins to commit deliberate crimes against his own family, like check forgery, in order to fuel his drug habit, demonstrating how much his morals have dissolved. Nic’s addiction is causing real emotional damage to his family, dividing Karen and David as they discuss what to do.
Themes
A few nights later, Nic returns home. He grunts a “hey” and rushes past David into his room. David asks him where he has been, but Nic doesn’t answer and starts to search his room. David asks Nic to sit and talk, saying that he has to go back to rehab—that he’s throwing his life away. Nic says that it’s his life to throw away, but David implores him not to do so. Nic responds that he has nothing to throw away, and he rushes past David and leaves.
Nic’s destruction has reached a point where he feels not only that he’s thrown his life away, but that there isn’t anything in his life that’s worth throwing away. This is a way for Nic to justify his drug use, highlighting the pernicious mentality of addicts that fuels the cycle of addiction.
Themes
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That night, David is awake at four a.m. He realizes that it is Nic’s 20th birthday. The next morning, David hears from Julia, Nic’s girlfriend. She cries on the phone, saying that Nic stole hypodermic needles and morphine from her mother’s house when they visited last month—which were for her cancer medication. She tells David that her sister had an addiction as well, and she implores David not to help Nic at all or give him money. Julia says that from her family’s experience, her only advice to David is to take care of himself. David hangs up, stunned that Nic is now injecting drugs into his arms.
Julia’s story reinforces the degree of harm that Nic is willing to inflict on those around him for the sake of getting drugs. The hypodermic needles also indicate that Nic’s drug use has escalated, showing how corrupted by the drugs he has become at only 20 years old. Additionally, Julia’s advice emphasizes what David already knows: that he should help support Nic, but he shouldn’t enable his addiction.
Themes
David continues on with life, but the disparity between Nic’s experience and Jasper and Daisy’s worlds is sometimes overwhelming. Once, when David hears Eric Clapton’s song about the death of his son, he breaks down in the grocery store while Jasper and Daisy are with him. They are horrified and frightened.
David’s story here demonstrates the emotional toll that Nic’s addiction is taking on him and subsequently on the rest of his family. Even though David believes that he is continuing on with his life, in reality, he’s been so wrapped up in Nic’s wellbeing that he has no way of enjoying the positive aspects of his life.
Themes
Two weeks pass, and Nic sends an email asking for help and money. David writes back that he will only help him return to treatment, which Nic declines. After another agonizing week, Nic calls to say he’s doing fine. David asks him to meet for lunch, and Nic agrees to meet at a café—but Nic is an hour and 15 minutes late to lunch. David and Nic hug tentatively and sit together to eat. Nic is clearly high but insists he’s doing great and is finally responsible for himself. David says that everyone is worried about him, but Nic dismisses David’s concerns as he eats.
David draws a line here between supporting Nic and enabling him. He wants to be there for his son and make sure that he is okay, but he knows that simply giving Nic money will allow him to further pursue his drug use. Yet even though Nic refuses to return to treatment, David can’t help but try to connect with his son.
Themes
After David and Nic say goodbye, David realizes how much he is now tolerating that he once thought “unthinkable.” He also thinks about how his expectations for Nic have changed. With Nic’s escalating drug use, he now hopes simply that Nic will live to 21. Summer ends, and each time the phone rings, David’s stomach lurches. He does not sleep.
David’s phone, which has become a recurring symbol, represents his lack of control in his dynamic with Nic. He is not in control of when Nic calls him, and each time the phone rings, David grows anxious over the news that might come on the other line.
Themes
