47 pages • 1 hour read
Anansi Boys
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Which Is Mostly about Names and Family Relationships”
The narrator introduces songs as the foundation of worlds, the protagonist Fat Charlie Nancy, and Fat Charlie’s father Anansi, or Mr. Nancy. Fat Charlie received his nickname from his father, who has a knack for naming things; once, he nicknamed a neighbor’s prize-winning dog “Goofy,” and the dog was never the same since. As Fat Charlie tries to tell his fiancée Rosie why he doesn’t want to invite his father to his wedding, he reflects on the embarrassing indignities bestowed by his father over the years. One of the worst was when Mr. Nancy convinced Fat Charlie that President’s Day meant dressing up as a famous president, so Fat Charlie showed up at school dressed as President Taft and was humiliated. He also pretended to see mermaids in the sea, but Fat Charlie never saw one.
Rosie convinces Fat Charlie to track down his father, so Fat Charlie reaches out to an old family friend, Mrs. Higgler. He remembers the last time he saw his father, which was when his mother was dying in the hospital. After waiting far too long, Mr. Nancy finally showed up with a full jazz band and gave his mother a sending-off party. The next day his mother was discharged from the hospital in full health. She fulfilled her dream of traveling the world before dying peacefully. At his mother’s funeral, Fat Charlie noticed a stranger who seemed to know him.
When Mrs. Higgler answers the phone, she tells him that his father died. Fat Charlie is horrified at the way Mr. Nancy died, from a heart attack onstage at a karaoke bar while trying to impress a tourist. Fat Charlie laments the loss of his family, and Rosie is sympathetic; however, she sticks to her decision not to sleep with him until after they’re married. He makes plans to travel to Florida, where his father’s funeral will be held.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Which Goes into Some of the Things that Happen after Funerals”
Fat Charlie arrives in Florida and joins a funeral party in the cemetery. When the preacher asks for comments, Fat Charlie steps up and makes a heartfelt speech about his father. Mrs. Higgler calls him, and he realizes he’s standing with the wrong funeral party. He follows her to Mr. Nancy’s grave. The funeral service has finished, and Mrs. Higgler instructs Fat Charlie to finish filling the grave with dirt. Afterwards, they go back to Mrs. Higgler’s house where her friends Mrs. Dunwiddy, Mrs. Bustamonte, and Mrs. Noles are waiting for them. Fat Charlie changes his muddy clothes before joining them for dinner. He resists his innate childhood fear of Mrs. Dunwiddy, who he believed to be a witch.
The next day, Fat Charlie and Mrs. Higgler go to Mr. Nancy’s house to go through his things. Fat Charlie discovers a photograph of himself beside a mirror, so that there are two of him in the photo. They reminisce about his mother and father’s early life together, and Mr. Nancy’s brief involvement with Mrs. Higgler. Fat Charlie grows angry at his father, and Mrs. Higgler confesses that Mr. Nancy was a god. They discuss Mr. Nancy’s magic, and then Mrs. Higgler tells Fat Charlie that he has a brother who received the godly gifts in the family. She points to Fat Charlie and his brother in the mirror photograph, then she confesses that Mrs. Dunwiddy sent Fat Charlie’s brother away. She tells him that he can reconnect with his brother by talking to a spider.
The narrative introduces the reader to Anansi and other gods like Gazelle, Monkey, and Tiger. Tiger used to own all stories before Anansi did, but that was when all the stories were filled with darkness and bloodshed. The narrator tells an Anansi story: After Anansi’s grandmother died, he takes her body in a wheelbarrow to bury it at his home. On his way, he passes a shop and decides to buy some whiskey. Anansi asks the shopkeeper to bring some to his grandmother and tricks the man into thinking he killed the woman. The man bribes Anansi with food, drink, and gold and sends him on his way. When Tiger asks where Anansi got all the food, he said it was from taking his grandmother’s body to the village. When Tiger tries the same thing by killing his wife’s mother, he’s mocked and driven away. The narrator compares stories to spiders and spiderwebs.
Chapter 3 Summary: “In Which There Is a Family Reunion”
Fat Charlie returns to England and meets Rosie at the airport. They discuss their upcoming wedding and Rosie’s mother, Mrs. Noah, who dislikes Fat Charlie and thinks he’s only marrying Rosie for her wealth. Rosie asks to come over and use his bath since her apartment’s had its water cut off, and Fat Charlie considers her rule of no sex before marriage. Finding he has nothing to do, Fat Charlie returns to his office a day early and meets with his boss, Grahame Coats. Fat Charlie is unhappy and unfulfilled at work and passes through jobs quickly. Grahame Coats is not pleased to see Fat Charlie return but sends him to work reassuring their client Maeve Livingstone. She’s trying to track down the payments made for her late husband’s work in comedy. Fat Charlie listens to her concerns and reflects on his fear of the spotlight.
He picks up wine, pizza, and a candle on his way home, but Rosie’s late, so he drinks the wine and eats the pizza by himself. When she goes to have her bath, she discovers a spider and makes Fat Charlie remove it for her. He catches it in a tumbler and takes it to the garden, where he asks it to pass on an invitation to his brother. After Rosie goes home, Fat Charlie has a dream of himself at a luxurious party. In his dream, he’s cooler, more confident, and the center of attention. He invites the partygoers to walk on the surface of the pool’s water with him, and before long, everyone is dancing on the pool. A spider comes up to him and gives him a message. Suddenly, all the partygoers fall through the surface of the pool water and Fat Charlie leaps off a hill before waking up.
A man arrives at his front door and introduces himself as Fat Charlie’s brother, Spider. Fat Charlie makes him coffee and examines his new brother, whom he recognizes from their mother’s funeral. He tells Spider that their father has died, and Spider decides to investigate. Fat Charlie gives him a photo of Mrs. Higgler sitting on her porch, and Spider uses the photograph to disappear. Fat Charlie goes back to sleep.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters introduce the central players of the story: the protagonist Fat Charlie, Spider, Anansi, Tiger, Rosie, Mrs. Noah, Grahame Coats, and Maeve Livingstone, laying out all the pieces necessary to drive the events of the plot. The novel feeds in its exposition gradually—much of which carries significance not fully realized until later, such as the subplot involving Maeve’s personal journey. The first chapter begins not with the central plotline but with an overview of the world’s creation through the power of song. These first paragraphs create a parallel with the ending of the novel, in which Charlie learns how to use his own song to shape his future. They also establish the folkloric quality of the novel.
The first chapter also establishes The Power of Names early on by detailing Anansi’s history with naming. This is another instance of bookending the story; in this memory, the judges who overview the prizewinning say, “Goofy-looking dog” (5). Later, this comment comes full circle when Charlie uses his new power to bring down Tiger. The other gods say, “Goofy sort of roar” (333) using, if not the same words, the same meter and inflection. When Anansi visits Fat Charlie’s mother in the hospital, he has a band play the song “Yellow Bird,” which Fat Charlie’s mother admits is her favorite. At the end of the novel, as Charlie walks along the beach with his son, they sing “Yellow Bird” together. After his mother is given another chance to live, she talks about going “back to Barbados, and to Saint Andrews” (14). This island is where the second half of the novel takes place as all the disparate threads are joined together. Her use of the word “back” suggests this might be where she’s originally from, and it’s where she finally dies in peace. These subtle connections from beginning to end give the novel a sense of unity and balance, bringing the story together in a way that feels circular and complete.
The juxtaposition of England and America is also present throughout the first chapter. Anansi travels between America and the UK, and Rosie and Fat Charlie discuss calling long distance to reach Mrs. Higgler. As Fat Charlie reflects on his past, we learn “He had arrived, at the age of ten, with an American accent, which he had been relentlessly teased about, and had worked very hard to lose” (20). This juxtaposition is a very real part of Gaiman’s life, as an Englishman who’s built a life in America and creates with a foot in both worlds. His novel American Gods, which is connected to this one, was born out of his exploration of American identity. Finally, the first chapter closes with ominous foreshadowing: “Later, when birds were something to be afraid of, Fat Charlie would still remember that morning as something good” (21). Drawing the reader’s attention to the motif shows that birds will be a prominent part of the novel.
The second chapter opens with Fat Charlie embarrassing himself at a funeral, which, compounded with his recount of his father in Chapter 1, displays an important facet of Fat Charlie’s socially awkward personality. This creates a solid foundation from which to launch his progression throughout the novel. This chapter also introduces the four older women who will become the catalyst for Fat Charlie’s story, juxtaposing their frailty and domesticity with the otherworldly events of the plot. Fat Charlie’s initial doubt of Mrs. Higgler’s stories establishes him as a relatable, everyman archetype in the tradition of Douglas Adams’s Arthur Dent or Gaiman’s Richard Mayhew.
This first section also sets up the conflicts that will guide the story, including Fat Charlie’s contention with Rosie’s mother, Rosie’s personal vow not to have sex before marriage, Fat Charlie’s dissatisfaction at work, and Grahame Coats’s dishonest business practices. As Fat Charlie enters Grahame Coats’s office, he sees the door open to Grahame Coats’s secret vault and hears “a thumping sound that might have been hammering” (49). This short, throwaway observation takes on new meaning when Grahame Coats uses that same hammer to kill Maeve and then locks her in the hidden vault. As Fat Charlie speaks with Maeve on the phone, he reflects on his terror of the stage and his nightmares. This moment shows the reader why Fat Charlie’s later heroic act to save Daisy is such a pivotal turning point for his character, and why his eventual career shows how far he’s come.
When Charlie decides, in a moment of whimsy, to reach out to Spider, he finds them connected through his dream. Though Fat Charlie doesn’t recognize it at the time, this is the first hint of his powers awakening. By reaching out to Spider with his mind, he carves a path between them just as he does later when he rescues Spider from Tiger. By the close of the third chapter, an entire story has been laid down in details that flourish over the rest of the novel.
Unlock all 47 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Neil Gaiman
