Book Analysis: The Stone Boy

The Stone Boy
The story is about a boy called Arnold, he is 9 years old. It says in the text “Arnold went into the barn” which makes me think that he has grown up on a farm, he lives there with his parents, and his bigger brother Eugene. Arnold is a normal boy, with an interest in weapons, like many boys have. I’m guessing Arnold sees his brother like quite an idol, because in the beginning of the text, he is so eager for his brother to go pick peas with him (“get up, you said you’d pick peas with me”). It would have meant nothing for him to pick peas, if it was not because it was time with his brother. When Arnold shoots Eugene, I do not know if it actually is on purpose, because it is quite clear that the mother cares a lot more for Eugene than for Arnold. Maybe he is jealous, I know the 3th person narrator says it is by accident, but I still have my doubt.
I think the title “The Stone Boy” is a very hard title, if it really is by accident he shoots him. How should he react if he should not toughen up? But if he shoots his brother on purpose, maybe he is a psychopath, or a “Stone Boy”, I do not know if he did it on purpose or not. But if he did not, I would not have called him “The Stone Boy” because with his family relations he has to be a “stone boy”. I think maybe his brother was the only one looking after him, and now that he has lost him, he just has to show no feelings, because no one will care about them. I think that Arnold’s family relations are not very healthy for him. I think Eugene was the favourite son. And I think the mother and father are too hard on Arnold, he is only nine years old. I think the mother should not have turned him down in the night when he came to her to talk, and get some sympathy. “”Mother?” he asked insistently. He had expected her to realize that he wanted to go down on his knees by her bed and tell her that Eugie was dead. He had expected her to tell him to come in, to allow him to dig his head into her blankets and tell her about the terror he had felt when he had knelt beside Eugie. He put his hand upon the knob. ”go back to bed Arnold,” she called sharply.” I think it is very important to have good family relations, to grow up well. I am not a psychologist or anything, but I think it is harder to get a normal life and to make your own family when you get older, if you have not had a good relation to your parents and your siblings. I guess that the themes in this text must be something about motherly/fatherly love, or the lack of it. I think that could have turned him to kill his brother, as I have written earlier in this essay. But I also think it is about growing up, and leaving things behind, maybe he should not had left it behind a few hours after it happened, but it would also be long story if we had to follow Arnold through 5 years, and he could then let it go. So as we grow up, I would say that it is important to leave some things behind, but also keep the good memories of your childhood.
Now I have come to the ending of this essay, and that is actually quite funny, because I am also going to write about the ending of the story. I think that it is very good that this emotionally heavy story has an open ending. It adds a little more heaviness to it, but I still want to know we he is frightened by his own answer, and that makes this ending the perfect. You can only imagine what he would have answered her, and you will never know. But if I was him I think I would have wanted to kill her, she is acting so childish, by have favourite children, and not wanting to talk to her own son when he needs her. I do not think she deserves to be a mother.