“I am the son who is quiet and no trouble, and I help our mother with chores around the house.”
The novel is narrated mostly through Gabe’s point of view and in making this statement he gives the reader a clear understanding of just who he is, at least in as much as he understands the dynamics of his family. Here, he establishes himself as “the good son” the counterfoil to the more brutal, more thuggish first-born. This statement also provides the reader with a bit of foreshadowing of tragic events to come. Gabe’s assertion that he is “the son who is quiet and no trouble” makes his eventual fall into a life of crime with his brother Tomas all the more heartbreaking because throughout it all both the readers and the character is aware that his participation in crime are born out of desperation and because Gabe feels that there is nowhere else to turn to.
“Why you standing all the way over there? Stop sulking. Sit down. If the client sees you standing there like that he's gonna think you're my houseboy.”
This excerpt perfectly crystalizes not only Tomas’ personality but it also perfectly frames the nature of the relationship that exists between the two sons: a mirror image of Cain and Abel. Tomas, being the more hateful and violent of the two greatly enjoys inflicting both physical and emotional abuse upon his younger brother. Notice the use of curt, cutting, commands intended to browbeat his brother. Tomas, very clearly is a bully and it is ironic that the first and most frequent recipient of his maltreatment should have been the person that he ought to be taking care of most next to his mother.
“Well, I don't see why such a man needs a dog to guard his house. He's not such a big celebrity. Who does he think he is? Maybe he's married to one... You tell your brother to come in before your aunt arrives and sees this dog attacking him.”
Ika, the long-suffering mother of the two boys, makes this pronouncement upon seeing one of Tomas’ clients that have come to pick up one of her sons’ prized attack dogs. This statement frames Ika’s simplistic perception of life as a whole, making judgments about people based primarily on appearances, proof positive that Ika, even though she resides in the US, is still very much the simple, Filipina country-bumpkin who left her country a couple of decades ago. This statement also frames her stand on her son’s choice of business; that is, that she disapproves of it greatly and that it is a great source of embarrassment for her. Rather than speak up about it and put her foot down on it however she treats it like a piece of dirt: to be swept under the rug and hopefully forgotten before anyone else notices.
