Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Runner, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Money, Class, and Community
Growing Up
Grief
Ambition
Crime
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Redmond and Charlie go to a train station, and Charlie remembers being afraid of trains as a child and hiding behind his father when he saw them. Now that he is older, he is eager to take the train to venture away from home for the first time. On the train, Charlie meets a fellow competitor in the race. The man is wealthy, with clean white running shoes, and he runs with a professional club. When Charlie tells him about training for speed with Mr. Redmond’s dog, the man scoffs that runners don’t need speed for a mile race, they need endurance. Mr. Redmond reveals that he never ran professionally and only learned how to run to escape childhood bullies.
Charlie remembers needing his father for support at the train station, but he has grown out of his fear of trains. This suggests that although Charlie misses his father, he has grown up and no longer needs someone to fill the role Mr. Feehan filled. On the train, Charlie meets a man representative of the kinds of men he will be racing against. He learns that his inexperience and poverty are serious disadvantages.
Themes
Charlie watches the landscape change through the train window, and he wonders how anyone runs in places with “nothing to see.” He knows Richmond is a place full of danger and cruelty, but for him, it is also full of hope. He sees remnants of a gold rush, and he realizes that the men who broke their backs digging for gold were just like him: dreaming of something better.
Charlie is no longer tempted by Richmond’s criminal underworld, but he still loves his town for its excitement. He enjoys running through the streets to see everything the city has to offer, and he can’t imagine running somewhere that lacks this excitement. He has also not lost his desire for a better life; he just knows he can’t find that life as a criminal.
Themes
The train arrives in Ballarat, where the race will take place, and Mr. Redmond and Charlie go to their room at a lodging house. Mr. Redmond gives Charlie a new pair of running shoes that all the neighbors helped pay for. Charlie is touched. Mr. Redmond leads him to a running track, and the two walk a lap while discussing strategy. Mr. Redmond advises Charlie to stay in lane one and to avoid swinging wide on the course’s bends.
The Redmonds have been the most prominent members of the Richmond community in the story, but the community as a whole is significant. They work together to pay for Charlie’s new shoes, pooling their resources because no one family can afford to buy the shoes on their own. The other residents of the Richmond slums want to help Charlie. Their help demonstrates how members of disenfranchised communities can support one another and help one another reach new opportunities.
Themes
