We the Animals: 1. We Wanted More Summary & Analysis

The narrator and his two older brothers yearn for more of everything—more food, more chaos, more noise. This is partly because they are used to doing without. For instance, they know what it’s like to be cold at night, what it’s like to do without heat. Sometimes the narrator’s oldest brother, Manny, climbs into bed with him and the second oldest, Joel, just so they can be warm together. In other moments, though, the brothers fight each other, yearning for destruction until Paps comes home, at which point they prepare themselves for spankings. As he hits them, they sense that there’s a purpose to this kind of pain, thinking that Paps is trying to guide them with each hit. 

Beatings from Paps don’t deter the narrator and his brothers from living wildly. However, there are periods during which they try to be as quiet and calm as possible. They act like this when Ma shuts herself in her room for multiple days without emerging. During these periods, the boys want desperately to protect her, hoping their silence and obedience will soothe her. The narrator describes her as a “confused goose of a woman,” somebody who is constantly tired, who loves her sons fiercely and cries often. When she stays in bed, the boys make themselves oatmeal in the mornings and eat it quietly, and in these moments, they find themselves wanting less, not more—less noise, less chaos, less trouble.