Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Son, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Pain and Maternal Love
Travel, Fitting In, and Values
Emotion, Individuality, and the Human Experience
Family and Coming of Age
Community and Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Claire is now at the top, panting. She finally looks down and can’t even see the village below. Unwrapping her arm, she kisses the cloth-wrapped rock for Einar—which is now crusted with blood—and tosses it off. Now, she’ll wait for dawn and for the strange man whom Einar said will come. Claire must say yes to the man (later revealed to be Trademaster), who comes to offer help to those who need it. If she says no, she’ll be punished. When the man approached Einar and offered transportation to his final destination, Einar proudly refused. The man then cut off half of both of Einar’s feet with a hatchet.
Einar’s absolutely horrific fate at the top of the cliff is extremely disturbing—as is the fact that Claire must put her trust in this man. However, both Claire and Einar seem to accept and understand that this is just one of many scary, uncomfortable things Claire must do as she works toward accomplishing her goal of finding her son. Her love for him, the novel suggests, makes working with such a character worth it.
Themes
Claire spends the night curled up asleep at the edge of the cliff. She wakes to Trademaster touching her arm. He isn’t what Claire expected: he’s thin, sallow, and dressed in an odd dark suit. His silky black gloves frighten her the most. She shrinks away, stands up, and says she knows who and what he is as he tries to introduce himself. This annoys him, and it also annoys him when Claire says she knows how their negotiation is going to play out. He scoffs and taunts her when she says she wants her son. Though Claire insists she has nothing to offer in return, Trademaster reaches out and grabs her hair to sniff, hurting her. She realizes that while Trademaster looked “ordinary” at first, he smells rancid.
Claire allows her love for her son to guide her behavior as she confronts Trademaster. In how he responds to her, Trademaster shows that he doesn’t value love or familial relationships all that much: he seems to taunt Claire because she’s asking for something that, to him, seems silly and inconsequential. His rancid smell is a clue that Trademaster isn’t the strange, powerful human he seems to be at first, but this detail is something the narrative will revisit later.
Themes
Trademaster asks Claire for her son’s name. She isn’t sure, but she says it might be Babe, or Abe. He explains that he wants her youth. She agrees, and he turns away. To Claire’s surprise, it’s hard to follow him. She’s now bent over, and she shuffles. Her hair is gray, and her hand is spotted. With contempt, he tells Claire her son’s name is Gabe and that his name is Trademaster.
It's almost anticlimactic when Claire accepts the trade and becomes old in exchange for finally reuniting with Gabe. This highlights again how powerful her love for her son is, as this trade seems like no big deal to her—when really, suddenly becoming elderly is a really big change with major implications for her future.
Themes
