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Mitt was Henry and Lelia’s son, who died in a tragic accident at a birthday party when he was seven years old. His death puts an enormous strain on Henry and Lelia’s relationship, and it isn’t until Henry finally opens up about his own grief that they’re able to mend the tension between them.
Mitt Quotes in Native Speaker
The Native Speaker quotes below are all either spoken by Mitt or refer to Mitt . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7 Quotes
“Just think about it. You haven’t said his name more than four or five times since it happened. You haven’t said his name tonight. Maybe you’ve talked all this time with Jack about him, maybe you say his name in your sleep, but we’ve never really talked about it, we haven’t really come right out together and said it, really named what happened for what it was.”
[…]
“It was a terrible accident.”
“An accident?” she cried, nearly hollering. She covered her mouth. Her voice was breaking. “How can you say it was an accident? We haven’t treated it like one. Not for a second. Look at us. Sweetie, can’t you see, when your baby dies it’s never an accident. […]”
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Chapter 15 Quotes
“If I had heard that one redheaded kid say even one funny word to Mitt! God! I would have punched his fucking lights out! I would have made him scream!” Her chest bucks, and she almost starts to cry, strangely, as if she’s frightened herself with a memory that isn’t true.
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Chapter 16 Quotes
And I think she’s saying it perfectly, just like she should. When you’re too careful you can’t say anything. You can’t imagine the play of the words in your head. You can’t hear them, and they all sound like they belong to somebody else.
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Get the entire Native Speaker LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mitt Character Timeline in Native Speaker
The timeline below shows where the character Mitt appears in Native Speaker. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...not to think about how he used to live there with Lelia and their son, Mitt.
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...thinks about what it was like to live in his and Lelia’s large apartment when Mitt was still alive. Mitt used to run around and yell, and they would often bathe...
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Chapter 4
Henry’s father died a year and a half after Mitt’s death. He was a serious man who wouldn’t have understood the kind of vacation Lelia...
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...foreign country, become a successful businessman, and would even have had enough money to help Mitt have a good life. In short, he made it possible for Henry to avoid the...
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Chapter 5
Years later, Henry and Lelia start spending the summers in Ardsley with Mitt, staying in a large room above Henry’s father’s garage. Lelia takes an interest in the...
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Chapter 7
Henry and Lelia’s son, Mitt, died at the age of seven. He had a close relationship with Henry’s father, who...
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...he acquiesced to their parents and quickly accepted their apologies. When the same happened to Mitt, though, Henry’s father lost his temper and started yelling on the doorstep of one boy’s...
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Despite the initial problems with the other children in Ardsley, Mitt soon became friends with everyone in the neighborhood. The accident happened at a birthday party—Henry...
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After Mitt’s death, Henry would stay up late. When he’d finally go to bed, he would pull...
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Mitt used to play with a tape recorder from Henry’s work. He liked saying things and...
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Henry tells Lelia that he has listened to the tapes of Mitt. She herself hasn’t listened to them for a while, since doing so always means she...
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Lelia and Henry start drinking. They’re still talking about Mitt, but in roundabout ways. Lelia feels bad about how she treated the people in her...
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...life. But she isn’t so sure. She’s disoriented by the fact that Henry never says Mitt’s name and never talks about what happened. He says that what happened to Mitt was...
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Chapter 15
...lost her mind with anger if any of the neighborhood kids in Ardsley had called Mitt a “gook.” She erupts into fury, but then she chokes back a cry, suddenly unable...
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Chapter 18
...to do exactly that when they first had a child, but the end result was Mitt, and he was so wonderful that Henry could never regret his initial reasons for having...
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