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Part I
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Son’s Veto, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Class vs. Human Flourishing
Family Duty vs. Desire
Freedom vs. Immobility
Regret
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Twycott soon dies of his illness. In her husband’s will, Sophy is treated like a child: she is left with no control over the estate, or even over her son’s education, only her own modest personal income. She is left with little to occupy her time, besides seeing her son on holidays, and she continues incessantly braiding her hair. Mr. Twycott had bought her a villa to live in after his death, where she now lives out her isolated existence.
After her husband’s death, Sophy’s life is further characterized by monotony and lack of freedom. Mr. Twycott’s treatment of Sophy as a “child,” with no control over the estate, demonstrates Mr. Twycott’s social prejudices and deepens Sophy’s lack of independence. Again, the symbol of braiding hair resurfaces to express the tedium and apparent superficiality of Sophy’s life. The villa that her husband leaves to her after his death becomes almost a kind of prison in which she lives out a lonely, diminished existence.
Themes
As he grows older, Sophy’s son Randolph grows more and more distant from his mother, with his aristocratic manners and his growing lack of interest in anything or anyone not belonging to elite society. Following her husband’s death, Sophy soon loses the artificial upper-class tastes she had acquired from her marriage, and her son, seeing himself as a “gentleman,” becomes increasingly ashamed of his mother’s “mistakes” and humble origins. Two years pass. Sophy’s life becomes dreary in its loneliness and idleness, and she even starts to wish that she could go back to the village where she was born and work in the fields.
As Randolph grows older, the relationship between Sophy and her son grows increasingly distant. He embraces the values of upper-class society far more fervently than even his own father, perhaps out of a sense of shame about his mother’s origins. His natural human sympathies grow dull, and he is unable to see the love that his mother has for him—showing the distorting effect that social expectations can have upon human relationships. Sophy is the exact opposite of Randolph in that she values her relationships with other people over how she is perceived by society, as indicated by how quickly she sheds the few upper-class mannerisms she has managed to acquire. Sophy’s lack of freedom and independence as a widow is owing to a combination of her foot injury (which makes her physically unable to walk) as well as the social expectations of how she should act as an upper-class widow and mother. She begins to dream of her old childhood village, Gaymead, which comes to symbolize the freedom that is denied to her now—a desire for freedom that perhaps indicates her regret over her decision to marry Mr. Twycott, and everything that has come along with that decision. It is not mainly her physical injury that keeps her from fulfilling this dream of freedom, but mostly, it seems, her sense of duty to her son—even though this relationship increasingly gives her far more grief than joy.
Themes
One day, rising early to watch country vehicles passing by with vegetables for the market, Sophy recognizes the driver of one of the wagons as Sam, the former gardener of her dead husband’s estate, and the man she almost married. Although Sophy had never truly loved him, she had often wondered whether her life might have been happier had she married him. Now, she feels a “tender interest” in him and wonders when he will drive past her house again.
The country vehicles carrying vegetables hold a special significance for Sophy, as they serve as a reminder of the rural lifestyle she has left behind. London, for Sophy, is a place of imprisonment and death; the countryside, by contrast, is a place of youth and life, symbolized here by the teeming piles of vegetables. The vehicles are also associated with freedom because of their mobility, in contrast to the immobility that characterizes Sophy’s life in London. It is significant that Sophy is reunited with Sam in this space at the edge of the city and the country, between the freedom of the road and the isolation of her villa: a symbol of the choice that her relationship with Sam presents to her, whether to stay in the prison that is her present life, or embrace that promise of freedom. When Sophy sees Sam on the country road, the narrator explicitly notes what has been implied, but never quite said, throughout the story up to this point: the fact that Sophy feels some regret over her decision to marry Mr. Twycott rather than Sam. Sophy is honest enough with herself to understand that what she feels towards Sam is not really love, but rather a sense of the possibilities that were lost when she gave up the opportunity to marry Sam. Even so, this feeling of regret is enough to awaken a genuine tenderness for Sam that will grow into something perhaps more akin to love.
Themes
For the rest of the morning, Sophy watches for Sam’s carriage, and she calls out his name as he passes by again. Sam’s face lights up as he recognizes her. Sophy asks him if he knew she lived in this area; he tells her that he did, and often looked around in hopes of seeing her. He explains that he has left his old gardening jobs to become a manager at a market-garden in London. He admits that he had moved to this area because he had seen the notice of Mr. Twycott’s death in the newspaper, which had revived his interest in Sophy.
This scene marks the first time that Sam and Sophy have talked in 16 years, and the relationship between the two characters has changed considerably. While Sam’s social status has improved (going from a hired gardener to a manager of a market-garden), it has not improved to nearly the same degree as Sophy’s. As a result (and perhaps also as a result of his increased maturity), Sam’s interactions with Sophy are no longer casual, easy-going, and forward, but rather quite respectful. The conversation between Sam and Sophy reveals that this reunion is not a coincidence, but rather occurred because Sam has never really forgotten his relationship with Sophy (much as Sophy herself still wonders what her life might have been like had she married Sam), and he has actively tried to seek her out since Mr. Twycott’s death.
Themes
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Despite her awareness of the difference in social status that now separates her from Sam, Sophy cannot keep herself from reminiscing with him about their childhood. Sam recognizes that she is unhappy, and he asks if she would like to return home. She admits that she wants the two of them to have a home together. But she immediately tells him that this can only be a momentary feeling, that she has a son to think about. She admits that she has never really been a lady, although her son is a gentleman—a discrepancy in their social positions that has made life difficult for her.
From the start, Sophy feels that there is something unconventional about her relationship with Sam, given the difference in social status. But she ignores this voice of social convention and immediately divulges her deepest-held desires and regrets to Sam: her grief over her son, and her desire for the simple kind of life that she had given up when she decided not to marry him. To Sophy, a relationship with Sam represents the possibility of returning to her childhood village, escaping from the constraints of social convention, and embracing a new kind of freedom and happiness. This vision of home is contrasted with the lifeless, imprisoning “home” of the villa in which she lives alone. But, immediately upon expressing her regrets and dreams to Sam, she is held back by the duty that she feels towards her son. Sophy expresses the fundamental nature of her conflict with her son when she tells Sam that she is not truly a “lady” while her son is a “gentleman”—the differences between Sophy and Randolph’s social origins, manners, and values are too great for her to overcome.
Themes
