The Theme of Anansi Boys

I came up with a few theme options for my book which were love, family relationships and relationships with gods. Out of all these choices, the most relevant theme was family relationships. The book strongly emphasized Charlie's bad relationship with his brother and father. Charlie held a grudge against them for past and present events that occured. Once they were both gone from his life, he started to realize the importance they had. For example, after Charlie's dad died, Charlie came to say he loved his dad. This is totally opposite of what Charlie thought in the beginning of his father. He thought his dad was embarrassing and hateful towards Charlie. Later when his brother came into his life, Spider started to ruin his life by stealing his girlfriend, moving into his house and annoying him with his presence. Eager to get Spider away, Charlie went to the lengths of going to the land of Gods to find the "Bird Women", who made a deal with Charlie to get rid of Spider if she could have Anansi's blood line. After the deal was done but before Spider died, Charlie came to his senses and figured out he needed his brother even if he was a pain in the neck. This theme shows that we take family for granted and don't understand how much they mean to us until they are gone.

If you don't pay attention to someone, it might mean you don't care about them. If you go through alot for them, even if it means to get rid of them, they must mean something to you if your willing to spend your time on them.