User:Chapstick27/The Terrapin

"The Terrapin" is a short story by Patricia Highsmith. Based on the difficult relationship Highsmith had with her own mother, the story revolves around a young boy, Victor, who is emotionally abused by his difficult, haughty mother, an illustrator of children's books.

The story begins with several instances of Victor's mother infantilizing him through requesting him to recite the days of the week, wear shorts with stockings, and give his opinion on her children's book illustrations. The story reveals that Victor's father, although claimed to be wealthy, is out of the picture, yet Victor is unfazed by this circumstance.

After tuning out his mother's ramblings on her new illustration, his mom realizes his disregard and taunts him for acting sound and mocks the shorts she forces him to wear, which is a sore subject for Victor. He starts crying, and then his mom informs him that her friend, Mrs. Badzerkian, is coming over for tea, and he should recite one of his poems for her. When he says he will recite, "Bed in Summer", the first poem that came to mind, she slaps him because he had already recited that poem and shouted when defending his answer.

Later, when going into the kitchen, Victor notices the live terrapin of the title, The terrapin of the title, a small tortoise trying to turn over off its back. Victor immediate starts fantasizing about showing the turtle off to other kids who bullied him. However, his mother informs him that the turtle is for a stew she is preparing. He still takes the Terrapin out and plays with it, ultimately growing his attachment and leading him to vow not to eat the terrapin.

After Mrs. Badzerkian arrived, Victor's mom recounts Victor's playing with the terrapin and describes him as childish. Victor interjects to defend himself before subsiding to his mother's excusing of him. After Mrs. Badzerkian leaves, Victor's mom request him to go get heavy cream. On his way back he encounters another child, Frank, and promises to show the terrapin to him the next morning.

When getting back, he realizes that his mother is preparing the stew that night and he wouldn't get the chance to show off the tortoise. Before he can persuade his mother to let him show off the terrapin, it suffers an agonizing death when she drops it into the boiling pan. She then begins to cut and prepare the dead animal, while Victor watches from afar. This event pushes Victor over the edge—he believes he heard it scream. During the night he butchers his mother with a kitchen knife, only stopping because of tiredness. The story ends while he is being examined by doctors in a psychiatric hospital.

The short story is mentioned in the 2023 film Perfect Days.

Background
"Nevertheless, the great love of Pat Highsmith's life- and certainly her greatest hate- was her artistic, stylish, erratic, critical, and very frustrated mother, Mary Highsmith." (The talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith)Many believe that the short story was inspired by Highsmith's own relationship with her mother, Mary Highsmith. There are several similarities between the mother in the short story and Highsmith's mother including...


 * Both Victor’s mother and Highsmith's mother are unsuccessful commercial artist.
 * Victor’s mother repeats the phrase “psychologically sick,” and Highsmith's mother described her, in several writings, as “sick.”
 * Victor and Highsmith's mother are divorced with no relationship to the father of their children.
 * Highsmith depicted both her mother and Victor's mother as erratic and critical