The Famished Road

Mum—who is never named, just as Dad is never named—is ostensibly why Azaro chooses to be born rather than remain in the spirit world. He wants her to be happy. For her part, she is fiercely protective of her son, saving him from captivity and luring him back home after his forays into the spirit realm. When the corrupt police officers are holding Azaro, Mum consults an herbalist who tells her where he is and how to rescue him. Upon seeing her in the doorway, framed by lightning, Azaro calls out to her with “hunger in [his] voice,” and she “lifted [him] up into the air and held [him] tightly to her warm, wet body” (27). Mum symbolizes not only nurture but also nourishment. Hunger—a theme that permeates the story in the physical and spiritual sense—can be alleviated by a mother’s milk and touch.

Mum is also the grounding center of the household. While Dad jumps from one passion to another, often drunk and disorderly, Mum solemnly goes about the business of going to the market each day, trying to provide food for the family. When the family’s door is marked by the machete, Azaro begins to fear for her life: “She didn’t know that the only thing that could make me stop [crying] was a promise from her that she would never die” (229). This is the common thought of young, immature children for whom immortality is a given for their parents; yet, it is also the thought of a spirit child who has dedicated himself to a deserving woman. Mum is dedicated to her family, even when Dad’s behavior robs her of her peace and her sustenance. When she tries to bring his spirit back after his last brawl, she follows him into his dreams: “She sang to Dad, asking him not to go away, begging him to return, in the name of love” (479). Her loyalty is unflinching, and she forgives Dad for his less fortunate exploits because she understands the poverty and lack of dignity that underpin his outsized desires. Her speech to the beggars encapsulates her core beliefs: “I must have done someone a great wrong to suffer like this. Please, leave us. My husband is mad, but he is a good man. We are too poor to be wicked and even as we suffer our hearts are full of goodness” (443-44). The crushing weight of poverty is deforming and ennobling for this woman overfull with a love of family.

Dad is a complicated figure. A man nearly broken by poverty and inadequacy, he is also boisterous, passionate, belligerent, abusive, loving, and morally suspect but ethically just. To Azaro, he is both a figure to fear and an idol to adore. When Dad returns home from a grueling day at work, he roughhouses with his son: “Hollering, he kept throwing me up in the air, filling me with dread. And he held me to him firmly, so that I was overwhelmed with his great bristling energies and his quivering heart, I burst out crying without knowing why” (29). Dad is also a raging alcoholic and a violent man who yearns for nothing more than to care for his family, make a difference in his society, and bring about a more equitable world. He excuses his alcohol consumption by conflating it with manliness and propounding its exigency: “Learn to drink, my son. A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life” (35). He sometimes neglects his family—as when he trains as a boxer and eats far more than his share of the larder—in favor of chasing his dreams of fulfillment.

Still, for all of Dad’s faults, he yearns to bring justice to the world. When he awakes from his long sleep following his final fight, he speaks at length about the new world they can hope to build: “We must take an interest in politics. We must become spies on behalf of justice” (498). He goes even further: “We can redream this world and make the dream real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves. My son, our hunger can change the world, make it better, sweeter” (498). His messianic dreams are presaged by many of his exploits: He fights what appears to be a supernatural foe, like Sir Gawain and his beheaded Green Knight; he endures, and arises from, several near-death experiences; and he is often overtly compared to Christ and Lazarus—both risen from the dead. About Dad, the blind old man asks, “How many times is a man reborn in one life?” (362). Dad is a legendary figure—perhaps even a kind of savior—and a flawed, sometimes defeated, human being. He is thwarted at every turn, though he always survives and often wins; he never loses hope.