Summary and Analysis

In "Cockroaches" Jacob is dead, and in his absence the room that he kept for himself, where he had raised the birds, is kept very clean and organized by Adela. This is a reflection of the war between Adela and Jacob. Jacob loses his sanity and then his life. Adela keeps on. A stuffed condor rots on the wall. The narrator believes that it is his father. He questions his mother about it. She is embarrassed and shy with her answers. She doesn't want to tell the truth, or speak about his father's madness.

The narrator then recalls the way his father died. The exciting man who had bred birds and flirted with Polda and Pauline, slowly disappeared. Jacob was overwhelmed by paranoia. He was terrified of cockroaches and slowly started turning into one. The narrator once saw him...