Comment on theme

In many ways, the story of the novel can be interpreted as the story of Zuckerman’s grief for his mother; the novel portrays the loss of his mother as a significant blow to Zuckerman’s sense of wellbeing, and his personal downward spiral appears to be a result of his struggle to process and overcome his grief. The very first line of the novel is “When he is sick, every man wants his mother” (3); over the course of the novel, Zuckerman experiences various states of illness, both physical and emotional, and yet he has no mother to whom he can turn for comfort or consolation. Later in the novel, the narration notes, “Zuckerman finally realized that is mother had been his only love” (239). In other words, Zuckerman felt as if his mother had been the only person who could truly provide him with a strong, loving relationship, and the loss of this relationship contributes to the depth of Zuckerman’s grief.