Summary
Mother and son is a bitter, caustic story which examines the suffocating relationship between an infirm, aged, bedridden woman and her son.
The story opens at the end of a day in which the son, John, has been out working the land. He returns home to the inhospitable cottage to attend to his widowed mother.
From the outset, the strain in this relationship is clear. His mother is consigned to her bed and has been for a decade and so John has never been able to leave home and get a job like the other boys in the village.
He feels compelled to look after his mother and work to keep their farm going. His mother, however, far from being grateful to him perpetually goads and mocks him.
As he prepares her tea, the criticisms continue relentlessly. She tells him how she regrets naming him after her father stating My father was never like you. He was a man who knew his business.
She implies that he has inherited some kind of hereditary predisposition to mental illness from his father鈥檚 side of the family and will be admitted to an asylum.
Despite the callousness of such comments, John doesn鈥檛 retaliate though admits that they continue to hurt him.
Over the course of the story a transformation takes place and John experiences a moment of clarity and realisation. We begin to think that John may finally stand up to his mother and there is an expectation that this could end violently.
However, instead of using his hands to retaliate, the narrative takes an unexpected turn and ends not with him harming his mother, but turning away from her and opening the door.