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Book 3, Chapter 12
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
Everything goes silent as Gabe veers into Trademaster. He senses pain, hatred, and rage, and these emotions are “strong enough to destroy one human boy.” Trademaster isn’t human, he’s just evil. Focusing on his task, Gabe searches for something he can use to best Trademaster. Back in the cabin, Claire sits up and tells Jonas she’s hungry.
Gabe does something supremely difficult as he filters through Trademaster’s emotions, noticing and experiencing the worst emotions on offer. But doing this, the novel suggests, can be useful and important—after all, it’s how Gabe will defeat Trademaster.
Themes
Gabe finds hunger, even starvation, in Trademaster. Remembering that Trademaster is “nourish[ed]” by seeing how his trades hurt people, Gabe realizes that people who starve die. Returning to his own body and mind, Gabe asks Trademaster if he remembers Mentor—and he says Mentor is now honorable and happy. Trademaster gasps. Gabe mentions Einar, who he says is happy, loved, and not at all destroyed. And Claire found Gabe, her son. Trademaster, Gabe says, will never know love. Trademaster sinks to the ground, touches his weapons, and turns into a rotting heap. Gabe buries what’s left in the ground and marks the spot with his paddle before swimming across the gentle river toward home.
By reminding Trademaster that there are people who have ended up just fine—even happy—after making trades with him, Gabe essentially shows the being that it’s impossible to destroy all human goodness and tenacity. Mentor outright rejected Trademaster’s trade when he could, but Claire and Einar, for instance, have simply made the best of their trades and have found satisfaction anyway. They’ve done this, importantly, because of their close connections to others, again highlighting the power of community and support.
Themes
Jonas wakes up to the sunrise. Earlier, he fed Claire and tucked her back into bed, certain she wouldn’t die tonight. But now, he finds that Claire isn’t in bed. She’s in the doorway, young again and smiling. Gabe is coming up the walkway.
Finally, Claire and Gabe meet again as mother and son. Having finally spoken the truth about their relationship (and now that Trademaster is gone), they can move forward and develop the relationship they’ve both always wanted. Both of their focuses on finding each other have, at last, paid off.
Themes
