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
Jared catches the 6 a.m. bus to visit his dad in Terrace. After sleeping on the bus for 45 minutes, he gets off at Walmart before walking the seven blocks to his father’s apartment. His stepsister Destiny lets him in, her belly bulging under her Minnie Mouse sweatshirt. Destiny gives him coffee, and Jared can hear his dad’s wife, Shirley, in the bedroom singing along to AC/DC.
This trip to visit his dad, which Jared takes alone, at 6.am. on a weekend, again highlights how responsible Jared is and how much he cares about his family. In addition, this passage’s initial characterization of Destiny is notable: even though she is pregnant and soon to carry parental responsibilities, she is wearing a Minnie Mouse sweatshirt. This underscores how Destiny is still very young (and perhaps immature) and likely unprepared for this kind of responsibility.
Themes
Destiny tells Jared that his dad is back in the hospital—the medications he takes for his back pain aren’t working. Jared asks why she didn’t text him, and Destiny shrugs. Jared says that he’ll do another sell in a week or so and get them caught up on rent. Jared also asks if the insurance people got back to his dad about his disability claim, or if they got the paperwork. Destiny doesn’t know, and Jared thinks that Destiny seems like a five-year-old. She goes to get the insurance papers as Jared sips the coffee. The coffee is watery, and Jared realizes that they’re probably rationing it. He wishes he’d stopped at Walmart to grab a tin of Folgers before he arrived.
Again, in spite of his young age, Jared has been forced to take on the role of a parent—even more so than Destiny, who is actually going to be a parent soon. Jared worries about his dad’s well-being, the rent (which is the reason that he sells the marijuana cookies), his dad’s disability insurance, and even making sure that his family has coffee. These are all things that a parent would normally handle, but because his dad is unable to fulfill his responsibilities as head of the household, Jared takes on the parental role instead. This illustrates how children from dysfunctional families tend to grow up quickly and take on more responsibility than is perhaps appropriate or fair for their age.
Themes
Jared and Destiny bring some of the rent money to the landlord’s office before heading to Walmart to buy groceries. Back at home, Destiny makes Jared lunch and tea, and Jared briefly glimpses Shirley, who smells like alcohol. When he met her for the first time, he was surprised that such a mousy woman could have broken up his parents’ marriage. Jared then heads to the hospital to visit his dad, who’s shaking as the nurse gives him Suboxone. After she leaves, his dad says that he’d go back on Oxycodone in a heartbeat if he could afford it.
Jared helps take care of Destiny by helping her buy groceries and go to the landlord’s office to pay the rent, again illustrating just how deeply Jared has internalized his sense of responsibility. Meanwhile, his dad’s addiction to pain medication (indicated by the Suboxone, which doctors use to ease patients’ withdrawal from opioids) has left him unable to care for his family.
Themes
Jared’s dad asks how his mom is, and Jared says that she’s the same. “Life with a witch,” his dad comments. Then, before drifting off to sleep, he makes Jared promise to get a desk job so that he won’t crack his back. Jared knows that his dad’s disability check is small, and his dad wants to sell the house that Jared and his mom live in. He doesn’t think they can keep up the mortgage and the bills, but his mom wants to fight for it.
While his parents bicker about the house, Jared worries about his father’s health and making sure that both of his parents can pay their bills. Again, this demonstrates how Jared has swapped roles with his parents, which speaks to how children growing up in dysfunctional families learn to take on extra responsibilities when their parents cannot.In addition, Jared’s dad’s addiction to pain pills shows how dangerous and destructive using drugs as a form of escapism can be.
Themes
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When Jared’s dad met Shirley in physical therapy, he started acting like his old self. He was protective of her, and after his and Jared’s mom’s divorce was finalized, they’d immediately moved in together. Nana Sophia didn’t attend their wedding, and she and her son stopped talking soon after, as his dad criticized her for getting her money by marrying wealthier men. Jared’s mom hated his dad because he ran off with Shirley and left her saddled with the mortgage. She spent their wedding day cursing him and burning every photo of him that she could find.
The dysfunction in Jared’s family seems to go beyond his parents, as his dad and grandmother have a fraught relationship as well. None of the adults in his family are willing to maturely confronting their issues, though, so Jared is stuck in the middle as he tries to figure out how to maintain relationships with the three most important adults in his life. This has forced him to grow up quickly, juggling his connections with Nana Sophia, his mom, and his dad, all while keeping these relationships largely secret.
Themes
After the ordeal with David, Jared’s dad visited him in the hospital and offered to take Jared in, but they both knew Jared’s mom would never let this happen, as she had sole custody. So, Jared stayed with Mrs. Jaks while his mom was in mandatory anger management. In the hospital, Jared’s dad told him not to blame himself for what happened with David.
The story again foreshadows a violent incident with David, which left Jared hospitalized and Jared’s mom in anger management. Jared’s mom’s hatred for his father essentially left Jared homeless, as he didn’t feel like he could even stay with his dad because he feared his mother’s wrath. This again demonstrates how dysfunction within families can force kids to take undue responsibility for themselves. It also shows the downfall of resorting to violence as a way of showing love, as Jared’s mom’s violently protective nature does more harm than good in her son’s life.
Themes
Presently, Jared’s dad wakes up in the hospital, and they play cribbage before Jared leaves to catch the last bus back to Kitimat. While Jared waits for the bus, his mom texts him asking where he is and if he’ll be home for dinner. He says that he’s playing video games with Kelsey and Blake, and that he won’t make it for dinner. He knows that she’ll be angry when she finds out he’s helping his dad. Jared doesn’t want to live with his dad—he just doesn’t want him to be homeless.
The juxtaposition of Jared’s memory and the present shows how Jared has switched places with his father, both literally and figuratively (here, he visits his father in a hospital bed, whereas before his father visited him). In this sense, Jared has taken on the role of a father figure in his family, while his father’s drug addiction has made him vulnerable and dependent on others, much like a child. Jared’s concern about his family becoming homeless is one that would typically fall to a parent, not a child.
Themes
