When the main character is at Miss Minnie’s house, the woman explains that the night of Ike’s murder, she didn’t hear anything. But when Miss Agatha got home, she and Alona started screaming. This was one of the first clues to the murderer’s identity, but not one that the POV character was able to pick up on until later. Another was how Minnie talked about Ike. She claimed she didn’t really know him at all, but that she was friends with Alona, his sister. But her discomfort with talking about Ike, uncrossing and recrossing her legs again and again, suggests otherwise. The nail in her coffin is the bird, Billie, who jeers with sayings it obviously picked up from Miss Minnie having sex. Even the narrator, who has so little understanding of women, is able to pick up on it, and it seems reasonable to him later on that Mr. Hal would’ve killed Ike when he learned his wife was having an affair. Learning about Ike’s addiction to heroin made that main character suspect his dealer, Fish Eyes, who was already dead. But when he goes to inspect the apartment a second time, he finds all the blood that the remodeler— possibly Alona herself— painted over without cleaning. The little details about the blood under the paint and following the trail out the window were put together in a really interesting way, leading the reader on to piece it all together along with the main character. The writing conveys the dawning realization and sudden apprehension the narrator feels as he sees Alona watching him and imagines her shoving him off the fire escape to plummet to his death. Another murder. It makes one wonder what specifically set Alona off so she felt she had to kill her brother, and just how it’s tied to her mother’s suffering as a child. What would it do to Alona’s mind to have been raised on that story? Did she see murder as the only option to stop her brother? Was it planned? There are layers to Alona the reader never gets the chance to explore, just like with all the women in the story. The narrator just doesn’t understand them, despite how much he clearly longs to.
“All Aunt Hagar’s Children”
Mar 4th, 2021 by isra
I would have also loved to know more about Alona’s motive for killing Ike. I thought though she was his wife. Maybe I misread that part of the story so I will have to look back. That scene with Alona staring out the window looking at the narrator is the scariest and most suspenseful part not only for the narrator but also the reader. The narrator’s thoughts make the scene even scarier as he realizes that Alona could push him out the window and kill him, just like she did with Ike so he would not reveal what happened. The only thing that probably stopped her from doing so is that her daughter was there as well.
I agree that Edward P. Jones did a wonderful job crafting the suspense with the murder. All the details we get at the same time as the narrator, and we are also investigating this case with him. The climax was particularly riveting when he realizes Alona murdered her husband and he feared she might do the same to him. However, as we know, he understands that she had a good reason to do murder her husband though he doesn’t know the exact nature of the reason. He does realize that Ike harmed her, and like the women in his life have done for him, he protects Alona.