Norton
A retired professor who narrates his corrupt relationship with his teenage son through self-justification.
To keep Racky close while avoiding an honest account of his own adult responsibility.
The book
At a glance
- Pages from Cold Point
- The Delicate Prey and Other Stories
- Mid-twentieth century
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeNorton moves to a Caribbean island with his sixteen-year-old son Racky after his wife Hope dies. Distance lets him imagine their household can exist outside ordinary judgment.
He narrates Racky’s sexual conduct with fascination, disapproval, desire, and helplessness. First person gives access to his explanations without making them trustworthy.
When the relationship becomes incestuous, Norton presents himself as unable to resist. That claim is part of his failure: the adult with parental power describes responsibility as if it belonged to the child.
How Norton Is Portrayed
- Place in the storyHis education and age once supported a conventional position of authority.
- How power worksAs father and narrator, he controls both the household and the first version of its story.
- What Bowles showsCareful explanation becomes a way to hide responsibility in plain sight.
- What remains uncertainReaders cannot fully recover Racky’s experience from Norton’s self-serving account.
- “Big Brother C.”His brother Charles is a successful lawyer with a thick red face and fathomless hypocritical prudery. Norton cannot eat or drink in his presence without a prodigious effort.
- Opening the door so Racky can hearWhen Charles shouts that he will know who to blame if there is trouble with the boy, Norton crosses the room and opens the door. Racky is in the hallway.
- No father takes it meeklyHe admits Charles is the only person whose bellowing he would tolerate, and then notes that no father likes to hear his son criticised. Racky stands in his bathrobe, his face empty.
Norton sends Racky to Havana and retreats alone to Cold Point, but separation does not restore innocence or moral order.
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