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
Sometimes, the three brothers decide to dress up as a woman. Because he’s the lightest, the narrator is the head, while his two brothers huddle beneath him in a trench coat. Inevitably, they fall to the ground, so they usually pretend to be the Three Musketeers instead, using forks as swords and having duals. No matter what game they play, though, they always feel unified as a group of three—so unified, in fact, that they speak as a single unit, saying things like, “Us hungry.” During one of Paps’s beatings, the narrator turns to Joel and says, “Us scared,” to which Joel replies, “Us fucked.”
Needless to say, all children play dress-up, but it’s worth noting that the narrator serves as the head when he and his brothers pretend to be a tall woman. This is significant because of the gender dynamics that emerge slowly throughout the novella, since the narrator has more and more trouble identifying with his brothers’ and father’s macho brand of masculinity. For this reason, it is symbolic that he is the one who serves as the most important part of this tall, fake woman. On another note, readers will notice once again that the three brothers are extremely close—so close that they regard themselves as a single entity. This makes sense, considering that they all must face the same threat of abuse. Because of this, they band together so closely that they become inseparable.
Themes
The boys used to pretend to be “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” the narrator explains, but this game changes when Ma teaches them about sex. Ma, for her part, never learned about sex, which is why she asked Paps if she could get pregnant after the first time they had sex, when Ma was only 14. Paps was 16, and he led her to believe that she couldn’t get pregnant. Sure enough, though, Manny started growing inside of her, so Paps agreed to marry her. After they got married, they quickly had Joel and the narrator. Upon learning this story, the three brothers no longer pretend to be Three Billy Goats Gruff. Rather, they play a game in which trolls trick the goats into having sex, creating Manny, Joel, and the narrator—three half-animal offspring.
Once more, the readers learn about Paps’s manipulative ways. This time, he proves his untrustworthiness by lying to Ma when she’s only 14, taking advantage of her lack of reproductive knowledge and experience. Years later, the boys mirror this manipulative behavior by inventing a game in which trolls trick goats into having sex. This suggests that abusive, unkind behavior runs the risk of perpetuating itself, as children like Manny, Joel, and the narrator incorporate their father’s actions into their make-believe world. And though the game they play is obviously harmless, the fact that they latch onto Paps’s behavior and reinvent it in their lives serves as an uncomfortable indication that they might someday fully embody his unsavory behavior.
Themes
