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17. Niagara
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in We the Animals, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Belonging
Violence, Aggression, and Love
Support and Caretaking
Masculinity and Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
The boys are teenagers now and have spent their entire lives as a triumvirate of sorts. Standing one snowy night on a loading dock, they smoke cigarettes and talk about robbing stores. As an aside, the narrator notes that—in the years to come—one of the brothers will drive his own face into a mirror because of a woman, and another will “slice up his arms.” They will also fail in class, get into car accidents, look at pornography, drop out of school, hang out with people who eventually seem vastly different than them, since they see themselves as “mutts,” estranged from other Puerto Ricans just as much as they’re estranged from white people. For now, though, they stand proudly on the loading dock, feeling tough and invincible.
In the novella’s second-to-last chapter, Torres focuses closely on the topic of identity, as the three brothers work hard to define who they are and where they fit into the world. When they talk about robbing stores, they demonstrate their desire to seem tough and daring—a mentality that Torres implies leads to lives of destruction and calamity, ultimately suggesting that this kind of macho posturing can be toxic and dangerous to a person’s overall wellbeing. Torres also draws attention to the fact that the boys feel out of place in their predominantly white community, having taken to heart Paps’s notion that they are “mutts” who don’t fit in anywhere.
Themes
Standing with his brothers in the snow, the narrator exists both “inside and outside their understanding.” He makes them uncomfortable because they can sense that he’s different. To that end, they think he will experience a life they themselves will never know, and they resent him for his academic success and for the general way he moves through the world. Feeling this way, they’re jealous of him even as they’re also proud, wanting to protect him at any cost.
The narrator and his brothers have a complicated relationship. This is because the brothers don’t know how to process the fact that he isn’t exactly like them. Whereas they have trouble in school, he excels and is intellectually curious. Furthermore, they champion a kind of masculinity that doesn’t resonate with the narrator, and though he apparently tries to hide this by talking like Manny and Joel, it’s clear to them that this is an act. As they grapple with this uncomfortable truth, they simultaneously resent and admire him. And though this is a fraught dynamic, the narrator’s brothers are still protective of him, once more illustrating how accustomed they are to caring for one another because of their overall lack of parental guidance.
Themes
The boys drink liquor and walk around in the snow. Upon finding a litter of homeless cats, they buy a carton of milk and set it out for the kittens. Manny wonders aloud how long it will take for the kittens to turn on the runt of the litter—a statement that makes him and Joel laugh, though it offends the narrator, who knows that he’s the runt of their family. Angrily, he swears at them and says he’s tired of “creeping around.” He then calls Manny a creep, criticizing him for talking about God so much but also talking about girls as if he has a sex life, which, the narrator suggests, he doesn’t. When Joel laughs—astonished that the narrator is so brazenly insulting Manny—he turns on him, too, saying that he’s “ignorant” and that both of them embarrass him.
The narrator, it seems, is keenly aware that he’s different from his brothers, but instead of remaining quiet and simply tagging along with them, he picks a fight. At first, this might not make sense, since readers might assume that the narrator would want to fly under the radar in an attempt to blend in with Manny and Joel. However, it’s worth considering that lashing out at his brothers is actually the best way to behave like them, since they are the kind of young men who are quick to start fights. Even though the narrator doesn’t identify with the kind of masculinity his brothers champion, he tries to mirror it by turning it back around on them, as if this might distract them from noticing that he has a different way of moving through the world.
Themes
Recently, Ma and Paps have been talking to the narrator about his academic success, telling him that he’ll be able to live an easier life than anyone else in his family—an idea he resents. Having challenged his brothers, he now faces them and waits for a beating. Manny picks up a branch and holds it close to his face while Joel holds his arms back. While Manny threatens him, he thinks about the branch hitting him in the head and yearns for the pain, so he pleads with Manny to hit him.
The narrator’s brothers aren’t the only ones who are uncomfortable about the fact that he’s different from the rest of his family. Indeed, he himself is unsettled by this idea, resenting the notion that he might have a better life than his loved ones. After all, this makes him feel estranged from his brothers, who have always been so close to him. Not wanting to lose this closeness, then, he tries to provoke them into beating him, since all three of them have learned by watching Paps that violence and aggression can sometimes signify love. In other words, he wants to goad his brothers into proving that they care about him, and the only way he knows how to do this is by engaging with their violent ways.
Themes
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After pretending to wind up, Manny drops the stick and becomes serious, saying that there really is something “fucked up” about the narrator, saying, “Let’s talk about that.” However, they don’t talk about it because, as the narrator notes, they can’t. Instead, they light new cigarettes, and Manny says that Ma told him several days ago that the narrator can accomplish anything in life. Joel chimes in to say that she told him the same thing. Going on, they say that Ma told them to protect him from other kids—and from himself. Hearing this, the narrator backs away from his brothers until he’s turning a corner in full retreat while they yell after him, calling him “girlie” and asking where he’s going. On his own now, he wonders if there is any other boy on earth like him.
That Manny and Joel don’t end up beating the narrator deeply troubles him, since he wanted them to pummel him as a way of confirming their closeness. Instead, though, Manny says there’s something “fucked up” about the narrator, but none of the brothers are capable of actually talking about what, exactly, this means. By this point, it seems quite likely that the narrator is a young homosexual man living in the closet, and the fact that Manny thinks there’s something “fucked up” about him underscores why he doesn’t want to come out about his sexuality: it’s clear that the people he cares about most will not accept him as a gay man. Unable to fight and unable to speak openly, then, the narrator simply backs away from Manny and Joel, not knowing how else to respond to the things they’re saying about him.
Themes
The narrator walks the three miles to the town’s bus station, a place he’s been visiting frequently. When the parking lot has enough buses, he can emerge from the woods and walk between two buses to the public bathroom without the risk of anyone seeing him. He has been doing this for weeks, though all he’s done is stand in the bathroom, unsure of how to indicate to the men around him that he’s “ready.” The closest he’s gotten to having contact with another man came when he was standing by the sinks and a stranger took his face in his hands, called him a “cute kid,” and told him to leave. Now, though, there is only one bus in the parking lot, and as he passes the door opens. The driver asks if he’s going to New York, but the narrator simply tells him he needs to pee.
Although the narrator hides his sexual identity from his brothers and parents, he is truthful with himself about the fact that he is attracted to men. Unfortunately, though, he has nobody in his life he feels he can talk to about this sort of thing, so he’s forced to explore his sexuality completely on his own, something that leads him to practice rather unsafe behavior—the kind of behavior that makes him (a mere teenager) vulnerable to adult strangers. This, it seems, is one of the many drawbacks of creating environments (like the one Ma and Paps created in their household) that don’t allow young people to express themselves openly and honestly.
Themes
The driver tells him he can’t pee in the public restroom at this time of night, though he doesn’t answer why. Instead, he says that he told everyone hoping to board the bus for New York to go home and come back in the morning because of the snow. He then tells the narrator that, if he has to pee so badly, he should board the bus and use its bathroom. He accepts this offer and hears the door shut behind him, and as he asks where the bathroom is, the driver stands before him. The narrator doesn’t move, wanting what he hopes will happen next. Sure enough, the driver reaches into the narrator’s pants, his fingers cold as he says, “You want me to make you, I’ll make you.” Later, on his way home, the narrator triumphantly yells, “He made me! I’m made!”
It’s worth acknowledging that the narrator’s first sexual encounter takes place with an adult. Needless to say, this is problematic, since the narrator is still a teenager. Whether he would have had a healthier first sexual experience if he hadn’t needed to hide his sexual orientation is, of course, impossible to say, but it’s quite likely that he wouldn’t have found himself having sex for the first time in such an unsafe setting. Putting this matter aside, though, the narrator is happy simply to have had his first sexual experience. He even repeats the bus driver’s phrase about being “made,” implying that he has finally become the person he’s supposed to be.
Themes
Back at home, the narrator enters to find his entire family sitting together, a heaviness hanging over them. When they look at him, he’s shocked by the intensity of their eyes, and he senses that something has been lost forever—things will never again be easy between him and his family. With tears on her face, Ma says something, but the narrator doesn’t hear her because he sees his journal sitting in her lap. Inside this journal, he knows, are long, detailed descriptions of his fantasies about the men at the bus station. These entries are intense and graphic, and the narrator feels at once that they’re perverse. Just then, everything in him seems to drop to the floor, and he falls to his knees, looking at his mother and saying, “I’ll kill you.”
When the narrator’s entire family read his journal, they invaded his privacy in a way that made it impossible for them to continue to ignore what they most likely already knew—namely, that he is a young gay man. In an accepting, communicative family, this wouldn’t necessarily have to be such a harrowing event, but the narrator has been raised in a family with very narrow ideas about what it means to be a man, a family in which violence and aggression take precedent over love and kindness. Consequently, he undoubtedly braces for the worst and even preempts his family’s harsh reaction by setting forth his own animosity by telling his mother he’s going to kill her.
Themes
Enraged that the narrator would threaten his own mother, Paps jumps at him, but Manny and Joel manage (for the first time ever) to keep him back. The narrator observes as the struggle between his father and brothers turns into an “embrace,” in which Manny and Joel support Paps even as they keep him from lunging forward. Seeing this, he understands once and for all that his entire family has read his journal and knows about his fantasies.
Once again, violence and tenderness come hand-in-hand in the narrator’s family. This time, the narrator recognizes this blend of anger and emotional support when his brothers crowd around their father, keeping him at bay while simultaneously helping him stand. This, it seems, is the closest their family can get to talking about difficult matters.
Themes
In just two hours, the narrator will find himself en route to the hospital, where his parents will check him into a psych ward. In retrospect, he recognizes that he must have wanted his journal to be found—otherwise, he wouldn’t have written down his fantasies. Before this realization and before the hospital, though, he looks at his family members in the living room, his brothers holding up Paps, his mother putting a hand on his chest to keep him back. This is the last time, the narrator notes, that all five of them are together, and he retrospectively believes that he could have stood up and let them embrace him. Instead of doing this, though, he acts like an animal, trying to tear their faces with his hands and, when this proves impossible, attacking his own face. Soon enough, they’re trying to restrain him even as he challenges them.
The narrator’s reaction in this scene recalls his earlier attempt to provoke Manny into hitting him with a stick. He recognizes that his family members do not support his identity, but he still wants to know that they care about him. And because violence in their family is often a way of showing love and affection, he tries to engage with them in an aggressive, physical capacity. Unfortunately, though, this only further exacerbates the preexisting tensions, and it is perhaps because he behaves so wildly that his family finds it necessary to put him in a psych ward (though it’s also possible that they do this simply because they are homophobic and see his homosexuality as something that must be cured). Regardless, though, what’s obvious is that his aggression in this moment does nothing but further estrange him from his loved ones.
Themes
When the narrator calms down, Paps takes him in his arms and brings him to the bathroom, where he lowers him into the bathtub and fills it with water. He then sets about taking off the narrator’s clothes and bathing him. While he gently washes his son’s body, Ma collects the narrator’s belongings, packing them up and bringing them to the truck, where Manny and Joel sit warming up the cabin and testing the windshield wipers. Returning, she sits on the closed toilet seat as Paps clips the narrator’s toenails. Sitting there, she wants to tell him that he can put as much hate on her as he wants, but she remains silent while Paps whistles a song—his way, the narrator believes, of saying goodbye. “Yes, ma’am,” Paps says to Ma. “We’re going to get him fixed up.”
There’s an extraordinary amount of tenderness in this scene, despite how emotionally devastating it is that the narrator’s family is about to send him away to a psych ward, effectively persecuting him for being a gay man. When Paps washes him, it is perhaps the most sensitive thing he’s done, delicately clipping his son’s toenails in a doting, caring way. Also of note is the fact that Ma wants the narrator to put his hate on her, meaning that she understands his anger and resentment and wants to help him shoulder the burden of these troubling feelings. And yet, she doesn’t actually say this, since their family is all but incapable of expressing and articulating genuine emotion to one another. Furthermore, Paps’s loving attention eventually reveals itself to be motivated by something else, as is made clear when he says that he’s going to get the narrator “fixed up,” thereby making it seem like he’s bathing him simply to wash off the young man’s sinful ways. In turn, it seems likely that Paps hopes to fundamentally change the narrator—something that is, of course, impossible and futile, since what the narrator truly needs is somebody to support him, not change him.
Themes
