week 3- themes

One of the themes in the novel, I think, is the importance of family. Sonny is definitely impacted by his family. Now that his mom married Cloyd, it seems like he feels that he doesn’t really have a family because he doesn’t like to be home and he doesn’t even eat dinner at home either. He is always trying to be out of the house in order to avoid his family. He goes and eats at the bowling alley almost every night because, according to him, doesn’t like his mother’s cooking. “ No, really, it is, I do. Over there, where I am living, I don’t like to eat. They got nasty food.” (145) Also, it seems like Sonny has been really annoyed with Cloyd and vise versa because lately, they have really been arguing a lot and Cloyd yelling at Sonny. “ ‘Where’s your mother?’ ‘ I dunno, man.’ ‘Don’t talk to me like that!...You talk to me with respect, you understand?’”(126) Sonny doesn’t yell back at Cloyd, probably because he doesn’t want to upset him even more and probably upset his mom. Instead, Sonny is letting his anger out in different ways like when he’s bowling and when he got in a fight. Sonny got mad while he was bowling and yelled a cuss word and got yelled at by Mr. Zuniga. When Sonny was leaving the bowling alley, he beat up a man and took his wallet after a confrontation. All of this seems like a way for Sonny to let out his anger he has at home towards the way his family relations have changed.

It seems like Silvia is also not happy with the family situation. She doesn’t like having to be at home all day every day. She started going out with her friend, Nelly, in order to get out of the house. She says that shopping makes her happy, but that Cloyd is really strict about his money and he doesn’t like that much getting used on that. It seems like she tries to get out of the house before Cloyd gets home in order to avoid confrontation because she is always telling Sonny to let Cloyd know that she had gone out and how long she’ll be out. She actually admits to not liking being home all day. “ I’m not happy here,...I’m a little bored.” (141) I think she is talking more about the way their lives have changed than actually just being stuck inside all day. 

Cloyd doesn’t seem happy with all of the family situations either. He doesn’t like Silvia going out, he likes to have her inside and clean and cook. He gets mad at Sonny when he doesn’t know where she goes. He sometimes says racist things and sometimes about Mexicans, but then follows it up with a positive comment like it cancels out the bad thing he said. He is mow married to a Mexican and has a Mexican stepson, but it doesn’t seem like it makes a difference to him. It seems like everyone is this family is having negative feeling towards one another, but I think it will change later in the book.