Sounder

The boy is the human protagonist and soon proves to be a round, dynamic character. As the eldest child of sharecroppers, the boy is responsible for helping his parents to provide for the family and care for his younger siblings. The author’s descriptions suggest that the boy is a hard-working and obedient child who often completes chores like gathering firewood, working in the fields, and hunting with his father and Sounder. Armstrong depicts the boy as a deep thinker who longs for more friends and greater intellectual stimulation, which are lacking in his lonely life at the plantation cabin. For instance, he imagines that a great flood could help him by bringing him and his neighbors together, and he pictures “[c]abins built on posts” that would just float like boats, porch and all” and muses that “[i]f they floated from the far ends of the land and all came together, that would be a town, and he wouldn’t be lonely anymore” (13). As a result of the boy’s loneliness and boredom, he clings to stories, especially the biblical stories that his mother tells him. These frequent influences inspire him to learn how to read so that he can always seek out new stories for himself instead of asking his mother to tell them. 

The boy’s sensitivity and emotional intelligence also enhance his deep bonds with his family and his dog. For instance, when Sounder is shot and goes missing, the boy searches endlessly for him and is deeply upset by his disappearance. Similarly, when the boy’s father is taken away to prison, the boy never forgets about him, and he becomes determined to discover his whereabouts. His insistence on traveling throughout the county alone to look for him demonstrates his immense love for his father and his optimistic belief that he is still alive and will come back home one day. The boy’s willingness to travel alone in a town hostile to Black people is also indicative of his bravery. In the end, the boy’s stoic reaction to the deaths of his father and Sounder indicates that the disappointments of life have jaded him, but it is clear that he still treasures their memory.

The mother is a secondary, flat character in the story, and the author’s descriptions of her are designed to illustrate the hardships that characterize life as a sharecropper in the 19th-century American South. The mother pays rent to the plantation owner in the form of labor in their fields, and in order to survive and support her family, she must also earn money by harvesting nuts and other goods and selling them in town. As a woman with young children living in a simple cabin, the mother spends much of her time providing for the family by cooking, cleaning, and feeding the children. She is hard-working and dedicated to her family, always striving to provide for them. When the father is arrested, the mother’s sudden status as the sole head of the family forces her to move on quickly from her own devastation and react pragmatically in order to cope with her husband’s absence. She continues to take care of the children, encouraging the boy to work hard and focus on his own needs rather than searching for his father.

One of the ways that the mother provides for the boy is by singing songs and teaching him The Power of Storytelling. Her skill at storytelling helps to comfort the boy and stimulates his imagination, especially in the absence of school and local friends. Their nightly ritual helps the boy to feel less lonely and prompts him to develop his goal of learning to read. As the narrative states: 

He would just wait, and if his mother wasn’t sad, with her lips stretched thin, she would stop humming and tell about David the boy, or King David. If she felt good and started long enough before bedtime, he would hear about Joseph the slave-boy, Joseph in prison, Joseph the dreamer, and Joseph the Big Man in Egypt. (50) 

Likewise, the mother’s approval of the boy’s decision to move in with the school teacher also shows her willingness to put her son’s needs before her own and support his goals.

The father is a secondary, flat character in the novel, and he is often simply referred to as “Sounder’s master,” since he was the one to find and adopt the dog when Sounder was a stray pup. His deep love for Sounder emphasizes the bond between dogs and their humans. From the very beginning, Armstrong portrays the father as a quiet and stoic man who is struggling to survive with his family in their rural plantation cabin in the midst of “the cold winter wind beginning to rise in the hills” (12). That winter’s windy conditions prevent the father from hunting with Sounder, depriving the family of much-needed income. The author implies that this is why the father decides to steal a ham and sausages from a neighboring family. However, his desperate attempt to provide for his wife and children goes terribly wrong when the local deputy comes to arrest him for theft. The father bears his imprisonment stoically and tries to protect his son by asking him not to visit the jail again. He attempts to reassure his son, “I’ll be back ‘fore long… tell her not to send you no more” (41).

The boy’s thoughts solidify the father’s status as a deeply caring parent; he remembers his father as being capable, powerful, and protective, and he “was never afraid when his father was near” (13). The boy’s innocent romanticization of his father contrasts sharply with the weakened man who returns to the cabin years later, in terrible health from the ravages of his imprisonment. The father’s death from his injuries intensifies the story’s tragic tone and deepens the novel’s exploration of violence, racism, and discrimination.