Previous
Book 3, Chapter 9
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
Gabe doesn’t believe Jonas’s fantastical story, and he’d rather be sinking a boat than listening to a man he loves and trusts tell him frightening nonsense. Jonas insists this is real, and that he remembers Claire. Claire gave birth to Gabe, as all birthmothers there do; and then babies were eventually assigned to couples. Gabe was Claire’s only baby, and after his difficult birth, they assigned her to the fish hatchery. Jonas says that Claire loved Gabe, but she wasn’t allowed to love him. Finally, Gabe says he can believe all of that, but he doesn’t believe this particular old woman is his mother or that Trademaster can do what Jonas says he can.
What really trips Gabe up is Trademaster and the fantastical elements of the story. Indeed, it confirms Gabe’s deepest desires to hear that he did indeed have a mother who loved him and has been looking for him—this is what he's wanted all along. But when it comes to the threat Trademaster poses, Gabe remains insistent that such a thing isn’t possible, which again reflects his youth and inexperience (he wasn’t old enough to see for himself what happened last time Trademaster was in the village, as detailed in Messenger).
Themes
Seeing Mentor outside, Jonas tells Gabe to follow him. They catch up to Mentor, and the man winces when Jonas explains that he’s trying to convince Gabe that Trademaster’s powers exist. Grudgingly, Mentor tells Gabe about the trade he made. He says he was a fool. He was a widower, self-conscious about a large birthmark on his face, and he had a crush on a widow. So at Trade Mart, he asked Trademaster to be younger and handsome so the widow would fall in love with him. Gabe finds this embarrassing; such a thing isn’t possible, and it makes Mentor sound like an idiot. But saying that “[e]vil can do anything [...] for a price,” Mentor says he traded away his honor. It worked.
With the help of hindsight, Mentor can tell Gabe straight out that he did something silly, selfish, and inappropriate by trading away his honor to become more handsome. It seemed, he acknowledges, like a good idea at the time—and it also highlights the ease with which Mentor sells himself short. As Claire’s romance with Einar showed, physical differences don’t make someone fundamentally unlovable (at least in a community that values difference).
Themes
Gabe is too caught up in his own thoughts (he now believes Claire) to listen to Mentor say that he did become young and handsome, but without his honor, the widow didn’t want him. Thanks to Jonas and Matty, who died fighting the evil, everyone else survived and they were able to heal the corruption. They banished Trademaster. When Mentor realizes Trademaster is back and that Gabe is going to go fight him (and possibly die) this time, he walks away silently. Seeing Mentor now, Gabe realizes a trade can be reversed. He admits he’s scared.
What happened to Mentor mirrors what happened to Claire: without her youth, she feared Gabe would reject her. As Gabe’s reaction suggests, this isn’t true (at least it isn’t now); what matters is that he’s found his mother, not how old she looks. This also spurs Gabe to realize that he does indeed need to take on Trademaster, as evil affects everyone—even if, like him until recently, a person doesn’t necessarily know it.
Themes
