Themes
Dysfunctional Relationships – The theme of socially impaired relationships is very apparent in Humble Boy and extends in one way or another in every characters relationship to another. The obvious distance between mother and son, the ex-girlfriend who keeps her daughter’s paternity secret for seven years, the slave-friend who crushes on her best friend’s fiancé, and the resentment of his mom’s new fiancé are just a few examples of dysfunctional relationships.
Reversed Social Hierarchy - The stereotype of the social structure in which “men” are the leaders and hold the most power is reversed. Flora acts as the head of the Humble estate and everyone else are more or less her pawns. This idea runs parallel with the social construction of a bee colony in which the queen bee is the most powerful.
Humility – The surname which the main characters in the play are given, spark the on-going debate between classical and the Christian view of humility. The last name Humble, relates the Christian view that humility and self-sacrifice are primary virtues of a well lived life. As opposed to the classical Aristotle view that the humble man’s lack of appropriate self-respect makes him just as foolish as the vain man.
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Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)