Theroux's Mr. Bones

Mr. Bones, written by Paul Theroux, is a short story about a father’s identity change and how his family sees him. Newley proclaimed Mr. Bones is a character in which the dad portrays as if he was a real person. He wears blackface, starts singing and performing and his whole demeanor changes. Other characters, Mom and the narrator (a child of Mr. Bones), are important aspects as well. They provide insight as to what living with their father’s or husband’s self-proclaimed new identity is like. Mr. Bones, Mother and the narrator, all provide generous amounts of information, in different ways, to support the main theme of how a person can change in order to feel better about themselves but there can be some backlash from others because of the effects of the change. It is not an uncommon thing for people to be self-conscious about themselves, it is actually more uncommon to find someone who is completely
Similarly in Mr. Bones, the narrator once saw his father as his hero. Unfortunately, this all changes when the person he once knew claims to be Mr. Bones. The narrator is continuously baffled by the dramatic changes his father undergoes, “…we had no idea what he was talking about,” (Theroux 1199). Mr. Bones is so different from who he used to be that his own child cannot understand and make sense of what his words. Furthermore, singing is not out of the ordinary for their father but once he became Mr. Bones, “within a week, he grew hoarse, and from the next room it was as though another man were singing—not Dad but a growly stranger,” (Theroux 1199). Parallel to other examples, the ‘new and improved’ Dad is not like he used to be at all. Everything is different, from the way he speaks to his voice. Of course, this all relates back to how Mr. Bones is much happier with himself but does not recognize the toll his new identity is taking on others, and in this case, his own