Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in We the Animals, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Belonging
Violence, Aggression, and Love
Support and Caretaking
Masculinity and Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
One evening, Paps comes home and starts lustfully reaching for Ma, who’s already late for work. She tells him to stop, but he doesn’t, instead pulling her toward the bedroom. At first, she calmly tells him that she needs to leave, but when he refuses to stop, she becomes more frantic, reaching for the walls as he brings her to the bedroom. Finally, she grabs hold of their bedroom’s doorframe while he laughs and pulls her backward. In the hall, the brothers note the desperation in her face as she stares at them, wanting their help while Paps tugs at her body. When she sees that her sons won’t intervene, her face falls and she gives them a sad smile, giving up as the bedroom door closes.
Throughout the novella, the narrator and his brothers often serve as caretakers or protectors to their mother, inverting the standard dynamic between parents and children. However, there are certain things from which they simply cannot protect her, chief among them Paps and his intense, aggressive ways. In fact, it’s unfair for her to expect them to intervene in this moment, since they don’t possess the adult maturity nor the physical strength to stop Paps from transgressing against Ma’s will. To her credit, she eventually recognizes that it’s unfair to place the burden of saving her on the boys, which is why her face falls and she tries to smile at them, as if to tell them that they shouldn’t feel guilty.
Themes
The boys go to bed, and Ma finally leaves for work. When she comes home, she wakes them up and tells them to get into the truck, which Paps never returned. She then drives to a park, where she tells them to play while she sleeps in the truck. They notice plastic bags of their clothing loaded in the bed of the truck, but they distract themselves from this by wrestling and, when that gets old, walking to the nearby highway, where they sit on the edge of the guardrail with their feet dangling over the edge of a small bridge. Cars honk at them while passing, but they pay no attention until a woman pulls over and offers to take them somewhere. They refuse, but she persists, eventually prompting Manny to call her a “bitch,” at which point they throw stones in her direction until she leaves.
Ma’s decision to take the boys to the park signals her desire to rid herself and her sons of Paps’s toxic influence. However, she hasn’t fully followed through with this decision yet, instead stopping at this nearby park and taking a nap. As a result, the boys find themselves suspended between two lives, not knowing if they’re actually running away from Paps or if they’re simply going to turn around and go back. As always, the only kind of support they can depend on comes from each other, so they try to preoccupy themselves by wrestling and causing trouble on the highway, though it’s unlikely that any of them actually manage to forget their current circumstances.
Themes
The boys return to the park, where they watch ducks swimming in a stream. Finding a canoe, they put it in the water, get in, and take a nap. When the wake up, Ma is looking at them, yelling that she thought they’d been kidnapped. When she gathers them back into the truck, she talks about the possibility of moving to Spain. The narrator is skeptical of this plan but says nothing, and eventually Ma stops dreaming about Europe. It’s dark now, and Ma turns to her sons and asks them what she should do—should they go back home to Paps, or should they leave forever? She tells them she’ll do anything they tell her to do, as long as they make the decision. However, none of the boys respond, so Ma turns the key and drives them home.
Once again, Ma looks to her sons for support, hoping they’ll be able to make this meaningful decision for her. However, for them to decide to leave Paps would mean going against their father, whom—despite his flaws—they love. And yet, to tell Ma to return to her abusive husband would also make them feel guilty, since it would ensure her continued unhappiness. Consequently, the boys find it impossible to help Ma decide what to do, which is why they stay silent—a reminder that they’re far too young to make such choices and that it’s unfair to expect so much of them.
Themes
