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Book 2, Chapter 6
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
As fall arrives, Claire helps harvest crops and make cider. It’s the first time Claire has ever felt brisk, dark evenings or seen people knitting sweaters. Tall Andras gives Claire a shawl that belonged to his mother, while Lame Einar creates a clasp for it. Alys has also made Claire a fur vest. Now, Claire and Alys prepare to walk to Bryn’s hut, as she’s in labor. Claire shudders as Alys packs a knife—but Alys says people believe it helps the pain to put a knife under the bed, and she also needs it for the umbilical cord. When they reach Bryn’s hut, Alys shoos Bethan, Delwyth, and Eira outside to gather flowers. Claire has seen Lame Einar help ewes give birth—and now, after months spent together, he’s not so shy around her.
This village is really focused on offering support and care, which is why Tall Andras and Lame Einar are so eager to help Claire get warm garments. There’s certainly a romantic aspect to their help, but it also seems counter to this community’s values to just let people freeze. This is also why Alys is the village midwife and doesn’t seem to take payment for her help: helping others here is just what’s done. Claire’s discomfort makes sense given her experience with childbirth, but as Claire doesn’t remember she’s had a baby, she isn’t able to identify the real source of her angst.
Themes
As Bryn gives birth to a daughter, Alys asks Claire to wash the knife—and out of nowhere, Claire begs Alys not to “cut Bryn.” And once the cord is cut, Claire tells Alys to give Bryn her baby and to not take the baby. Alys is confused and hands over the baby, which she was going to do anyway. Claire watches the baby nurse for a moment and then stumbles outside, sobbing. It’s a beautiful sunrise—but all of Claire’s sunrises from this one forward will be “ruined by memory and loss.”
Witnessing Bryn give birth—and getting to hold and nurse her baby immediately after—triggers Claire’s memories, which are nowhere near as simple and happy. In addition to remembering her own birth and baby, Claire also learns that it’s not the case everywhere that babies are ripped from their birth mothers, highlighting for her how cold and unemotional her former community was.
Themes
