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Chapter 21
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 puts $20 on his phone plan and uses the rest of his savings to pay the electricity bill. It’s been four months since Jared’s mom has talked to him and five weeks since she’s been home. One of the tenants comes back with a pot roast and other groceries, but Jared has to call Sarah to see if she has a cookbook with a pot roast recipe, because he no longer has internet service at home. He can hear Sarah and Mrs. Jaks bickering on the other side, until the phone abruptly cuts off.
Again, Jared is forced to deal with adult problems that teenagers don’t typically have to worry about. In addition to keeping up the house in his mother’s absence, Jared has to figure out how to pay for his phone and cook dinners for himself and his tenants. In this way, his mom’s negligence forces him to essentially become his own parent, the breadwinner of the household, and a landlord who’s responsible for the tenants.
Themes
Dylan comes to Jared’s door and asks him to take a road trip with him. Jared refuses, reminding Dylan that he threw up on Jared’s floor, left without cleaning it up, and complains about Ebony all the time. Jared says that he’s sick of Dylan making himself feel better by looking down on Jared. Jared says that it must be nice having his mom and dad clean up his messes, and Dylan curses at Jared, leaving just as Sarah shows up.
Jared’s troubled home life has made him different from peers like Dylan. Because Dylan has his parents to help solve up his problems, he acts more immaturely (he’s able to focus on his breakup all the time, and he doesn’t feel responsible for his own messes). Jared, however, has a dysfunctional family, and dealing with this has forced him to deal with much more serious problems and gain more maturity as a result.
Themes
Sarah gives Jared the cookbook, earmarking the pot roast recipe with a condom. She jokes that Dylan likes Jared—he’s probably close to pulling Jared’s zipper down with his teeth. Jared asks her to not be a pervert. Sarah says that she doesn’t know why she’s attracted to Jared, because she doesn’t believe in monogamy, it’s clear that he finds her behavior “pervy,” and she’s usually attracted to people who don’t adhere to gender binaries. Jared gets confused, asking if that means she’s gay, or bisexual, or trans, and Sarah gets annoyed that Jared doesn’t understand her and leaves. The house is quiet, and Jared thinks that if he left, no one would miss him. But he tells himself to stop moping, and he starts on the pot roast.
Jared’s exchange with Sarah contrasts with Dylan’s problems with Ebony: while Dylan talks about his relationship drama all the time, Jared quickly brushes off his argument with Sarah because he has bigger problems to focus on. Jared’s thought that he could simply leave, and no one would miss him, again points to how little support and stability he has in his life. But the fact that Jared simply tells himself to stop moping and continues to take care of the house indicates that he doesn’t even have the luxury of running away from his life.
Themes
That night, Jared’s mom returns. Jared stays in the basement, both relieved and nervous as he hears a party going on upstairs. Later, he wakes to find his mom at the foot of his bed. She’s shaking, and her pupils are dilated. Jared apologizes, and his mom says that he isn’t sorry—but he will be.
Jared’s mom’s return only emphasizes the contrast between them: she’s been acting as a teenager, while he’s taken on the role of an adult. She took out her anger on Jared unnecessarily, left behind all of her responsibilities, and used drugs (implied by the shaking and dilated pupils) to avoid her problems. And, as a result of her irresponsibility, Jared was forced to be his own parent.
Themes
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