Run

An emerging theme in Run, The Importance of Protecting Loved Ones, threads through this section of the novel, highlighting the qualities of some of its main characters, the Doyles. This theme connects the section’s chapters through Patchett’s style of developing plot and characterization. In this section, the novel’s plot “resets” following Chapter 1, with the third-person narrator quickly introducing three main characters before the novel’s inciting incident, the car accident. These characters—Tip, Teddy, and Doyle—also variously struggle to “reset” their lives in more fulfilling directions.

The first main character introduced is Tip. At the top of his “food chain” is academics; everything else, including family, is “there to be eaten” (22). He has little patience for Doyle, who forces his politics on Tip while Tip, on the other hand, wants to devote himself to ichthyology. Yet Tip protects Doyle’s feelings by continuously accepting his invitations to lectures and similar events. The studious Tip is the first character to hint at The Importance of Protecting Loved Ones, a significant theme in the novel, since he has a ruthless view of familial priorities and yet does protect Doyle. Because Tip has cooperated with Doyle for so long, he feels that he has “spoiled” his father into hoping that he would one day have a political career (31). Tip’s lack of patience with his father begins to reveal the obverse of The Importance of Protecting Loved Ones: the limits of a person’s ability to do so indefinitely, under all conditions.

Teddy, Tip’s slightly younger brother, is the next main character introduced. Unlike Tip, Teddy has little interest in his unspecified undergraduate studies at Northeastern University, and he devotes himself to watching over their elderly great-Uncle Sullivan at his home, a residential care facility. He is therefore a foil to the academic or political ambitions of the Doyle family. According to Doyle in Chapter 4, Teddy is also an ardent preserver of Bernadette’s memory, mining him for “information” and asking for “stories” from Uncle Sullivan (75). His interests probe the Differences Between Family Legacies and Family Stories, as his father feels reluctant to share stories while Teddy resists the family’s political legacies. Teddy’s kind disposition also foreshadows an important turn in the priorities of the Doyle family regarding caring for Kenya.

Uncle Sullivan first appears as a topic of conversation between the brothers in Chapter 2. They describe him as a miraculous healer, according to local media, and Teddy is afraid that Uncle Sullivan will be “crushed by a stampede of sick people” if he does not guard his door (22). By meeting Uncle Sullivan through the priesthood-inclined Teddy, readers learn more about Teddy himself than Uncle Sullivan to understand the depth of his kindness and care. In Chapter 3, readers learn that Teddy also cares for strangers (Kenya). Similarly, in the emotional first hours following the novel’s inciting incident, readers begin to see the deeper values and personalities of the rest of the Doyles. When Kenya and Tennessee Moser enter the story, as Bernard and Sullivan Doyle’s characters are yet developing, their family’s priorities begin to expand in important ways.

This section also introduces Tennessee as a figure shrouded in questions. Doyle’s cynicism toward her stimulates questions concerning the veracity of Kenya’s story. It is not until the end of Chapter 3 that Kenya reveals Tennessee’s identity to the Doyles. Significantly, this sharing occurs off-page, meaning that the information does not generate the novel’s drama but rather the interpersonal relationships. Further, Kenya cannot not know if the information her mother has told her is true and correct; in later chapters, readers learn that it is possible that Tennessee has not told Kenya the whole truth about her own parentage. Yet, as Sullivan points out in Chapter 4, Tennessee “must be very brave” for jumping in front of an SUV to save Tip (85). Teddy calls her actions “heroic,” though like Doyle, he reasons that she is either “a sad person or a dangerous person” because she followed their family via Doyle’s public political career (105, 94). Beyond some detail late in Chapter 5 related to Tennessee’s mixed feelings about politics, this section of the novel does not verify much concerning her integrity; the narrative remains ambiguous, reflecting the mixture of emotions unfolding from the information about Tennessee’s identity.

Kenya becomes a crucial factor in the expansion of the Doyle family’s priorities. This expansion is not without its growing pains, however. Doyle, readers begin to learn, is a grizzled lawyer who is set in his tendencies and preferences. In contrast with Teddy’s treatment of Kenya following the accident, Doyle holds the 11-year-old girl and her mother in suspicion. Although he does not “blame the child” (78), Patchett uses Doyle to introduce the theme of Awareness of Privilege as he shows himself to be unaware and assumes that his family could be victims of Tennessee’s “elaborate” con. However, his “viciousness” is more than a holdover from Doyle’s prosecutorial days; it is a protective impulse for his sons. This protective impulse reduces Tennessee and Kenya to potential threats against his family, highlighting a disparity between his privilege and their lack of privilege. Nevertheless, Patchett makes Doyle a sympathetic figure since he has been a single parent and public figure for decades fighting maternity claims about his sons.

Doyle also does not initially treat Kenya as a threat following her mother’s accident. Unlike Chapter 3’s professional care-workers, Doyle comes to consider Kenya’s safety. Right after the accident, when they are strangers, Doyle sees Kenya and Tennessee in good faith: “a child whose mother had been hit by a car” (87). He returns to this perspective after inviting Kenya to spend a first night at his home. Patchett thus connects the chapters of this section using the theme The Importance of Protecting Loved Ones through her style of characterization.