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3. Heritage
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
Paps brings Ma home one day and carries her inside. Laying her down in bed, he gently touches her hair and whispers to her. When the narrator and his brothers ask what happened, he tells them that the dentist started punching her after sedating her. This, he says, is how dentists loosen teeth for extraction. For the next three days, Ma stays in bed and takes pain medication, and Paps forbids the boys from entering the bedroom. Finally, though, they decide they can’t wait anymore and creep inside, where they find her lying with bruises on her face. This is the same morning as the narrator’s seventh birthday, and when Ma wakes up, she looks at her boys and calls them beautiful. This embarrasses the narrator, who turns away as Manny reminds Ma that it’s the narrator’s birthday.
Given that Paps uses physical force to punish the narrator and his brothers, it seems sinister and concerning that he brings Ma home with injuries on her face. Even more discomfiting is the fact that he tells the boys that dentists loosen teeth by punching their patients in the face—an obvious lie that makes it seem even more likely that he’s the one responsible for her injuries. Afraid for their mother, the boys keep their distance for as long as they can, but their eventual decision to visit her against their father’s wishes indicates just how protective they are and the extent to which they care about her wellbeing. Indeed, they care so much that they ultimately find themselves acting like caretakers to their own mother, thereby inverting the standard dynamic between parents and children.
Themes
Manny tells Ma that the narrator is seven now, and she says, “He’ll leave me, now he’s seven.” When the boys ask what she means, she says both Manny and Joel grew apart from her when they turned seven, since this is what older boys do. The narrator says he won’t do this, but Ma ignores him, saying that Manny and Joel suddenly wanted to fight and break things when they turned seven. This confounds Manny and Joel, though the narrator notes that they look somehow proud, too. The narrator, for his part, says he doesn’t want to break things or get into fights, so Ma suggests that he remain six for the rest of his life. She then gets up and brings a hand mirror to her face as the boys leave the room. With tears in her eyes, she asks, “What did he do to me?”
In this scene, Ma links the male coming of age process to aggression and wildness. Because Paps himself signifies this kind of masculine energy, it makes sense that Manny and Joel feel oddly proud about what their mother has said, clearly reveling in the idea that they’re rowdy and tough. The narrator, on the other hand, wants to remain close to his mother, ultimately hoping to preserve a sensitivity that everyone in his life thinks boys can only possess when they’re young. In this moment, then, readers see that the narrator is growing up in a social environment in which there are very specific ideas about what it means to be a man—ideas that don’t necessarily align with what the narrator wants for himself.
Themes
The narrator stays in Ma’s bedroom and tells her the dentist punched her to loosen her teeth. Hearing this, she throws the mirror at the wall and yells, asking if he thinks it’s funny that a man beat her. Frightened, the narrator hides behind a curtain. After a few moments, his mother calls him back to the bed, where she sits on the edge and sings him a song. She then asks him to promise to stay six for the rest of his life. With each new year, she says, he can simply say that he’s six plus one, or six plus two, and so on. By doing this, she explains, he will make it clear that he’s always his mother’s baby. This way, she adds, he’ll never become “slick and tough.” She needs him to remain soft, she adds, unlike his brothers, who are turning into Paps.
When Ma gets mad at the narrator for repeating what his father told him, it becomes rather obvious that Paps was the one who injured her. With this in mind, it makes sense that Ma doesn’t want the narrator—her youngest son—to turn into the same kind of “tough” man as his father, who gives himself over to aggression and violence. Interestingly enough, she doesn’t tell the narrator to simply become a kind, nonviolent man, but tells him not to grow up. This is because she can’t even imagine a grown man who isn’t “slick and tough,” thereby suggesting that she thinks it’s impossible for men to be sensitive—a biproduct of society’s narrowminded conception of what it means to be a man.
Themes
Looking at his mother’s swollen face, the narrator is overcome by his love for her. He wants to do whatever he can to make her feel better, and in a moment of tenderness, he reaches out, takes her face in his hands, and kisses her. In pain, Ma rapidly turns away and pushes the narrator to the floor. As he falls, he hears her swearing. By the time he hits the floor, he knows he has turned seven.
Because Ma can’t even conceive that a grown man could be sensitive and loving, she makes an absurd request: that the narrator remain six for the rest of his life, thereby preserving his innocence and kindness. This, however, is impossible, since there’s no way to keep a person from growing up and leaving childhood behind. Indeed, that the narrator’s attempt to express his love ultimately backfires and causes Ma to lash out at him signifies just how impossible her request really is.
Themes
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