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
In the present, Jared has to take his pit bull, Baby Killer, to be euthanized, because she has heartworm. He and his mom bring Baby to the vet in the morning to sedate her. Jared scratches her head, and when she wheezes, his eyes water—until she licks his arm. Jared leans his head against Baby’s, and the vet gives them a moment. As Jared cries with his dog, his mom goes out for a smoke. He knows that if the vet wasn’t there, his mom would be telling him not to act like a “wuss.” Jared tells Baby that he’s going to miss her and hugs her hard.
Here, the book contrasts Jared’s relationships with his dog and with his mother. Jared and his dog share a gentle, unconditional love as he quietly cries over losing her, and she seems to comfort him in return. Jared’s mom, however, makes no effort to sympathize with him, and Jared suggests that she would discourage his emotions by calling him a “wuss” if they were alone. By placing these two relationships so close to one another, the book illustrates how much healthier Jared’s affectionate relationship is with his dog than with his mother, who associates love and emotion with weakness.
Themes
The story flashes back to when Jared got Baby Killer a few years earlier. At the time, his mom is dating a guy named Death Threat, but he leaves suddenly because he owes debts to a violent biker gang. One guy from the gang expects Jared’s mom to pay the debts, and he pins a note to their door with a knife asking for the money. Jared’s mom dismisses the note, saying sarcastically that someone laid a monster hex on them.
Jared’s flashback underscores how violence has always been a constant presence in his life because of the people that his mom dates. The fact that her boyfriend is nicknamed “Death Threat” immediately establishes that she’s attracted to violent men, perhaps because she believes that they can protect her. But this association with love and violence does not translate to Jared, who only experiences the violence that her boyfriends bring into his life. Additionally, Jared’s mom’s aside that the biker laid a “monster hex” on them further hints that she’s involved in magic.
Themes
Jared’s mom is struggling: following her and his dad’s divorce, many of Jared’s mom’s friends moved away when the paper mill, Eurocan, shut down. Now, she has trouble making the mortgage, and the fridge is only full of scraps from her job at the North Star. She watches Jared constantly, and he surmises that she’s worried about the biker gang.
Jared’s mom’s struggles further contribute to his family’s dysfunctional dynamic. Rather than worrying about age-appropriate problems for a teenager (like schoolwork or friendships), Jared has to worry about his mom’s financial woes, as well as her violent boyfriends.
Themes
The morning that Jared’s mom discovers the knife, Jared walks to the bus stop and sees a tall man in a leather jacket watching him with two pit bulls with him on chains. The man releases the pit bulls, and Jared drops his backpack to run away. Suddenly, however, Jared’s mom comes down the road and hits the pit bull with her car, squashing it under her tire. Blood sprays the snow. Jared’s mom tells the man to leave Jared alone, that their business should remain between the two of them. As they hear a police siren getting louder, she apologizes coolly for hitting his dog, but the man says that he has another. When a policeman approaches, the two of them put on a show, lying that it was an accident as though they’d been practicing for years.
This incident is the first overtly violent act that Jared’s mom commits in the book, and it illustrates why mixing love and violence can be confusing for Jared. His mom is clearly trying to protect him, but squashing a dog underneath her car tires is a gruesome action that probably doesn’t come across as a loving gesture to Jared. His mom quickly aligns herself with the man following the incident, complicating the idea of who might be an enemy in Jared’s life and who might be a friend. This shows that, in some relationships, violence and love are not always mutually exclusive.
Themes
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After the cop leaves, Jared realizes that his jeans are splattered with blood and dog chunks, and that his homework has flown out of his backpack. Jared’s mom tells him that the man, Richie, could answer a lot of their problems if Jared keeps his cool. Jared tries to pull away from her, but she grabs him and says that she would “kill and die” for him.
While Jared’s mom believes that saying she would “kill and die” for him is an expression of her love, this statement is more complicated for Jared. His attempt to pull away from his mother suggests that he’s troubled by what his mother has done, and by her willingness to invite a violent person into their lives for the sake of protection. In this way, mixing violence and love can be confusing and frightening.
Themes
Back in the present, Jared runs on the track during gym class. It’s raining and almost freezing outside, but he insists on running to train for the track team while the other kids do basketball drills. In reality, he just doesn’t want to explain his swollen eyes to them. When Richie moved in, his other dog—Baby Killer—immediately became attached to Jared. She crawled into his bed at night, nuzzling him and licking his face. She’d wait for him to come home from school every day and then follow him around the house.
Here, the book establishes the love between Jared and Richie’s other pit bull, Baby Killer. It’s ironic that a pit bull named Baby Killer—a breed and a name both associated with violence—turns out to be the most loving relationship in Jared’s life. This suggests that even though violence is ever-present in Jared’s life, violence in one’s relationships is not inevitable.
Themes
As Jared stretches just outside the gym doors, Dylan Wilkinson approaches him. He’s Native, like Jared, but he lives on the nearby reserve, Kitamaat Village, and hangs around with the sporty crowd. Dylan asks if Jared is selling cookies, but Jared denies it, saying that his mom’s boyfriend Richie is the one who sells. Jared says that the only cookies he makes are for the track team’s bake sales. Dylan glares at him, annoyed that Jared won’t sell to him. Dylan leaves, and the end of-day buzzer blares. Not ready to go back to the vet, Jared lets the rain hit his face until he’s numb. He doesn’t want to “blubber like a dumb-ass again.”
Dylan’s inquiry hints at the fact that the cookies Jared sells aren’t typical bake sale fare—they likely contain with marijuana. This introduces the fact that drugs also have a constant presence in Jared’s life, and one that many kids in school use to escape their problems. Additionally, Jared’s final thought here shows how his mother’s mockery of genuine emotions influences the way he thinks about himself. Rather than recognizing that it’s natural to mourn a beloved relationship, he seems to views his love for Baby Killer and sadness over her death as a sign of weakness or stupidity (this is why he refers to himself a “blubber[ing] like a dumb-ass”).
Themes
After putting Baby Killer down, Jared and his mom sit in his room in the basement, drinking a six-pack of beer. Jared lives in the basement so that his mom can rent out his upstairs bedroom, along with two other rooms, to cover their bills. They dragged his mattress down, along with a toaster oven, a hot plate, and tote bags to hold his clothes. He also has a utility tub, a toilet, and a door that leads outside with its own lock. Richie put up a wall to separate Jared’s side of the basement from the laundry machines. With his paper route money, Jared also bought a mini fridge and a couch—but the basement is still damp, dingy, and cold.
Jared’s move from his bedroom upstairs to the basement reflects his relationship with his mother and his maturity. Even though he is only 16, Jared is taking on adult concerns like worrying about paying bills because his mom can’t do it alone, illustrating how those who grow up in dysfunctional households are often forced to grow up more quickly than they would otherwise. In addition, the basement affords him adult independence—his lifestyle is more similar to that of an adult living in an apartment than a teenager living with his mother.
Themes
Jared’s mom suggests that he spend the night upstairs with her, but Jared refuses, knowing that Richie would be annoyed at being made to sleep on the couch. They finish the six-pack and take shots of vodka before Richie drives them out to a logging road. Jared digs a grave and puts a blanket down, laying Baby on top of it. He’s pretty sure that he’s crying, but later, his mom tells Jared that he was singing “Like a G6.”
This passage establishes another key part of Jared’s life: the fact that he uses alcohol to cope with his many problems. Even at 16, he drinks beers and does shots of vodka (encouraged by his mother) to dull the pain of his dog’s death, illustrating how alcohol is a means of escapism. But it’s also a coping mechanism that comes with consequences, as it distorts Jared’s sense of reality.
Themes
