Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Son of a Trickster, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dysfunctional Families, Responsibility, and Maturity
Love vs. Violence
Escapism and Confronting Problems
The Environment and Human Destruction
Summary
Analysis
Martina Yelan approaches Jared at the bus stop after his last final, telling him to text her when he has more cookies and writing her number on his hand. He takes the bus downtown, gets money from his bank account, and then waits for the bus to Terrace. A Native man then approaches Jared as Jared checks his phone: 17 messages from Destiny. She gave birth to her son Ben a week ago, but the baby’s dad abandoned her. Jared feels bad for her, but he was hoping he wouldn’t have to stay after dropping off the money at the landlord’s office.
Even though Nana Sophia warned Jared not to use the money she gave him for his father, Jared still takes it out of his bank account to help his dad and Destiny pay the rent that they owe to their landlord. Contrary to Nana Sophia’s admonishment that Jared isn’t responsible for others’ decisions, he still feels obligated to support his family because his father isn’t able to take responsibility himself.
Themes
When Jared gets on the bus to Terrace, the Native guy sits next to him and tries to make conversation, but Jared starts to get creeped out. The man introduces himself as Wee’git and says that he’s Jared’s real dad. As he starts to explain that Jared’s mom shot him in the head, Jared calls him a freak and gets up, pushing to the back of the bus. He watches as the guy gets off at the next stop, but when he looks out the window, he only sees a raven flying away. Jared tells himself that the man must have been crazy.
Though the trickster figure Wee’git continues to have a mysterious presence in Jared’s life, Jared refuses to acknowledge that the man on the bus might be telling him the truth. In dismissing the man as crazy, just as he dismissed the raven as a hallucination earlier, Jared is again avoiding his problems rather than confronting them directly.
Themes
Jared gets off the bus at Terrace and brings the rent money to the landlord’s office, catching his dad up on all the back rent he owed. When Jared arrives at his dad’s apartment, Destiny answers the door, her eyes swollen and red. She asks Jared if he wants to meet Ben, but Jared says that he can’t stay long. Destiny helps him hold Ben, which makes Jared nervous. He asks where his dad is, and Destiny says that one of Shirley’s brothers died, so they went to the funeral—but she suspects they also wanted to avoid Destiny and Ben.
Here, Jared takes on actual parental responsibility—holding a baby—while his own dad is essentially absent from his and Destiny’s lives. Jared’s dad and Shirley are trying to escape a new responsibility of helping Destiny with her son, causing her to take more responsibility as well. This again speaks to how parents’ irresponsibility and neglect can force their children to grow up and fend for themselves before they’re necessarily ready to do so.
Themes
Destiny is upset that everyone seems to be leaving her, so she asks Jared if he can stay the night. Jared reluctantly agrees but says that he has to catch the last bus back, because it doesn’t run on the weekends. They watch the news together, and Destiny tells Jared that he’s a good uncle as she makes Ben’s formula. Destiny shows Jared how to change the baby’s diaper and make a bottle. Ben throws up when Jared burps him. The clock ticks past the time Jared would have to leave—he’s stuck for the weekend. Ben goes to sleep, and Jared and Destiny play Uno together.
Destiny’s sentiments here emphasize that Jared is more mature than most of the adults in his life. While Jared’s father is trying to escape any responsibility of helping Destiny care for her son, Jared helps her despite the fact that he has no obligation to do so. Growing up with difficult (and often absent) parents has made Jared internalize the maturity that this situation forced him to develop, reinforcing how difficult home lives prompt kids to grow up and take on greater responsibility.
Themes
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On Sunday after dinner, Destiny goes out for diapers and doesn’t come back. Jared texts her, but she doesn’t respond. The baby starts crying, so Jared makes a bottle for him. Ben drinks his bottle and fusses as the hours pass. The next time Ben wakes, Jared can’t get the formula right, and Ben keeps throwing up. He falls asleep but wakes up three hours later, screaming. Jared decides that he’s never having kids, sleeping fitfully the rest of the night.
Although Jared doesn’t know where Destiny is or what she’s doing, her absence forces Jared to take on even more responsibility in caring for an infant whom he only just learned to feed and change. He’s used to his parents abandoning him, which seems to have primed Jared to step up and act maturely in situations like this.
Themes
Destiny staggers home late the next morning with the diapers. Jared is furious that she didn’t ask him to watch Ben and just took off. She says that she’ll pay him, but Jared points out that she’s paying him with the money he gave her. Destiny reminds him that they’re family, but Jared says that she doesn’t get to dump her kid on him when she wants to go to a party. She shouts at him angrily for leaving when things get hard, but Jared simply says that he doesn’t like being played. She yells at him that he’s a bad uncle.
The fact that Destiny went to a party without telling Jared where she was going provides a contrast between her recklessness and thoughtlessness (which is perhaps more typical of an average teenager) versus Jared’s willingness to be the caretaker that Ben needs. This again shows how his family’s dysfunction has taught him to take on greater responsibility than other kids his age.
Themes
When Jared gets back to his house, Blake is gone; he left Jared thank-you beer in the fridge. Jared crashes, and when he wakes up, he has eight texts from Destiny, saying that she loves him, and that Ben misses his uncle. Jared goes upstairs and finds his mom in the kitchen. She tells him to lay off the partying for a while—he smells like vomit. Jared asks if his mom thought of not having him, but she assures him she never regretted him.
Jared’s mom’s assumption that he was partying is very different from what really happened, as the vomit she smells is actually from the baby he was caring for. This again highlights how Jared is more responsible than most people his age. Even though he does party at times, he is also responsible for those around him—Ben, Destiny, and his parents—in a way that’s atypical of a 16-year-old.
Themes
