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
When Jared gets home, he is still weirded out by his afternoon with Jwa’sins, but he gets distracted by a message from Nana Sophia, who will be back from Europe soon. She tells Jared that she’s counting the days until he gets there, that she’ll have a room ready for him, and that she loves him. Meanwhile, Jared hasn’t gotten any text messages from his mom. He hasn’t gone upstairs in days and wonders if she’d even notice if he left. He realizes that he just isn’t as important to her as whatever drugs she’s on.
The room that Nana Sophia has prepared for Jared contrasts with what Jared’s mom did to his basement room. These different environments represent the very different relationships that Jared has with his grandmother and mother: his mom often tempers her love with violence, while Nana Sophia offers Jared a safe and comfortable space that reflects the affection in their relationship. In addition, the book again highlights the problems with using drugs as a coping mechanism, as doing so leads Jared’s mother to completely neglect him.
Themes
The next morning, Jared watches Mr. Jaks wander down the street in his pajamas. He helps Mr. Jaks back to his house, and Sarah greets them on the porch. Inside, Jared sees Mrs. Jaks in a lump on the couch, asleep, and so Jared helps Mr. Jaks shave, wash his dentures, and change clothes. Afterwards, Sarah makes coffee while Jared scrambles eggs and fries sausages. Once they’re done eating, Jared and Mr. Jaks turn the soil over together before going inside and watching the news.
Even as Jared’s own life is growing more and more chaotic, he still has a deep-seated impulse to help the Jakses in whatever way he can. Because his and Sarah’s own families have been so absent, they’re forced to act as parents. In this case, that means feeding and caring for the Jakses and keeping up the house.
Themes
When Mr. Jaks and Mrs. Jaks are both asleep, Sarah explains that Mrs. Jaks is going back to Vancouver for more chemotherapy next week. Mr. Jaks is also going back into respite care, so Sarah will be at the house alone. Sarah hasn’t slept in days, so Jared changes to the Weather Channel and lets Sarah fall asleep next to him. He yearns to stay in this quiet moment, with everyone calm and safe.
This moment of calm for Jared and Sarah demonstrates how their families’ problems have put a huge amount of weight and responsibility on their shoulders. At this point, something as simple as falling asleep on the couch while watching TV is a rare luxury.
Themes
Early the next morning, Jared’s mom texts him that she has a bad hangover. Jared doesn’t want to care about his mom anymore, and he ignores her. His mom continues to text him, however, and Richie even texts him to text his mom back. Jared wants to stay with Sarah, but watching Mr. Jaks and Mrs. Jaks slowly dying is brutal. He wants to believe that his mom is sorry, but his dad always says he’s sorry and still does bad things. Mostly, Jared doesn’t want to be played, and he doesn’t want to be alone.
All of Jared’s problems come to a head here: he’s juggling his parents’ drug addictions, caring for his dying neighbors, and trying to build stable relationships. All of this shows how compounded and weighty Jared’s problems are, in contrast to the simpler problems that other teenagers face.
Themes
Get the entire Son of a Trickster LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jared scrolls through a bunch of texts from his mom and Richie. Richie’s texts relay that Richie’s brother was a meth addict who shot Richie for his money. He came to visit Richie in the hospital and stole his wallet and sneakers. Richie’s family thinks he called the cops on his brother, but he didn’t. He says that Jared shouldn’t step out on his family in this way.
Richie’s texts emphasize how using drugs to escape one’s problems—like his brother does—only worsens those problems, which is what happens to Jared’s mom as well. And because of his mom’s addiction, Jared feels the weight of repairing his relationship with her—another way in which her issues have burdened him.
Themes
Meanwhile, Jared’s mom explains that she’s turning into her mother, Anita. When Anita was little, she got tuberculosis, and the nuns Anita lived with sent her to a sanatorium, putting her in a body cast and starving her. She’s only alive because the sanatorium lost funding and shut down. Anytime Jared’s mom sniffled growing up, Anita brought out the bleach and prayed constantly. Jared’s mom’s sister left when she turned 16, leaving his mom alone with Anita, and Anita immediately wrote her off as a “whore.” She says that she never wanted Jared to feel like he had to run away from her.
Anita and Jared’s mother’s backstory sheds light on his mother’s new impulse to clean the house, as Anita’s trauma led her to clean the house (seemingly as a way of feeling more in control of her environment). But while Jared’s mom ran away from her mother and gained some responsibility for herself, she realizes that she is repeating this cycle with Jared. She is pushing Jared away and causing him to take on more responsibility, in the same way that her mom pushed her away as well. In both cases, a dysfunctional parent forced their child to grow up quickly.
Themes
After reading his mom’s texts, Jared texts Nana Sophia, asking about Jared’s mom’s sister. Nana Sophia sends him a link to an article that his aunt Mavis wrote—Mavis is a writer and published an essay about searching for Jared’s mom during one of Jared’s mom’s relapses. Nana Sophia explains that Mavis is one of Jared’s mom’s triggers, so she never brought it up. Then, Jared receives two more texts: one from Richie cursing at Jared and telling him to text his mom, and one from his mom saying over and over that she loves him.
Here, Jared’s mom reaches a turning point, realizing that the way she’s been treating Jared isn’t an effective way of maintaining a relationship with him—which is why she’s trying to express her love for him in a more straightforward way. This speaks to the idea that relationships founded on love and affection are stronger and healthier than those in which love is implied or mixed up with violence.
Themes
When Jared goes back home, he lies in bed with his mom under her covers. She’s shaking, and she doesn’t have any eyebrows. Smoking a cigarette, she tells Jared that she’s not going to do any more drugs that turn her into her mother. Just then, Richie comes back with whiskey for Jared’s mom. When Richie starts unbuttoning his shirt, Jared gets up. Before he leaves, Jared’s mom tells him that she loves him, and he says he loves her, too.
Jared’s mom finally begins to recognize how using drugs to escape her problems is only creating more difficult ones, particularly in damaging her relationship with Jared. Here, she’s trying to show more affection, perhaps to make up for stabbing him with the tweezers earlier. This again reinforces that relationships built on open and warm expressions of love are healthier than those that involve violence.
Themes
