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Freddy
Freddy’s mom is a woman who has endured much hardship. Her family is not well-off, her son Tanker has died in a motorcycle accident, and her husband Ivan is unreliable. The narrator pities her, as he sees her trying to overcome her pain and failing to do so. Still, like Freddy, she tries her best to remain present and hopeful. She spends time with the boys when they are over, joking and listening to their stories with rapt attention. She is also the only present mother in the story, making sandwiches, putting out cookies, and neatly wrapping the narrator’s dirty clothes in butcher paper. While, for the narrator, her life seems to suggest that things won’t always work out—an idea he finds intolerable—within the broader story she serves as a model for what survival looks like, even when sadness is insurmountable.
Freddy’s Mom Quotes in Flyboys
The Flyboys quotes below are all either spoken by Freddy’s Mom or refer to Freddy’s Mom. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Flyboys
Quotes
She turned to me, her eyes so sad I had to force myself not to look away. “I can’t get over how you’ve grown,” she said. “Freddy, hasn’t he grown?”
“Like a weed,” Freddy said.
“By leaps and bounds,” I said, falling into our old game in spite of myself.
Clark looked back and forth between us.
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Sometimes she came out to offer us a sandwich and ask us questions about our day, but I wished she wouldn’t. I had never seen such sorrow; it appalled me. And I was even more appalled by her attempts to overcome it, because they so plainly, pathetically failed, and in failing opened up the view of a world I had only begun to suspect, where wounds did not heal, and things did not work out for the best.
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Freddy’s Mom Quotes in Flyboys
The Flyboys quotes below are all either spoken by Freddy’s Mom or refer to Freddy’s Mom. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Flyboys
Quotes
She turned to me, her eyes so sad I had to force myself not to look away. “I can’t get over how you’ve grown,” she said. “Freddy, hasn’t he grown?”
“Like a weed,” Freddy said.
“By leaps and bounds,” I said, falling into our old game in spite of myself.
Clark looked back and forth between us.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Sometimes she came out to offer us a sandwich and ask us questions about our day, but I wished she wouldn’t. I had never seen such sorrow; it appalled me. And I was even more appalled by her attempts to overcome it, because they so plainly, pathetically failed, and in failing opened up the view of a world I had only begun to suspect, where wounds did not heal, and things did not work out for the best.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
