The Good Thief Blog #6

Ren's family has always been a mystery until these last few chapters of the book. All of a sudden he gets a mother and an uncle, and his real name. One thing that he still doesn't know about his family is who his father is. McGinty, his uncle, wants to find Ren's father, but he wants to find him in order to kill him. Ren is asked who his father is, because McGinty thinks of all people, Ren would know. Ren, thinking that he is gone and can't be hurt, says, "His name,' said Ren, 'is Benjamin Nab'" (Tinti 303). McGinty yells to bring 'him' in, and he reveals that he has been keeping Benjamin locked up and tortured because he was suspicious of him. Ren says he was lying, but Benjamin tells him he wasn't, and that he really is his father. Ren realizes that, "he had already claimed him as a son, long before Ren had claimed him as a father" (Tinti 306). The reason why Benjamin had picked Ren at the orphanage because he knew he was his son. He kept him beside him because he wanted to keep watch over his son. He wasn't able to tell him before because he didn't want Ren to know his father was a criminal and low-life like him. Ren realizes that Benjamin was always there for him, and that they already had a father-son relationship, besides the fact that they were actually conning people instead of going fishing. To Ren who never had a father before or any type of family, Benjamin was the first person to treat him like family and to take him away from the orphanage. Before the book ends, Benjamin and Ren run away from McGinty but Benjamin has to leave. Ren has to deal with this, but then he returns to the boarding house he finds Dolly dead. Benjamin's last con was a gift for Ren. When McGinty was torturing Benjamin, Benjamin wanted to sign a "will", except he knew that McGinty couldn't read. The "will" was actually McGinty's will, which he made him sign without knowing what it was. "Being sound of mind and memory, I do constitute and appoint this my last will and testament revoking all former wills by me made. Imprints, after payments of just debts and funeral charges, I will and bequeath all of my estate both real and personal in manner upon my death, to my nephew, Reginald Edward McGinty" (Tinti 319). The factory and all of the money involved with it now belonged to Ren, and now he could live without having to go back to the orphanage, as Tom said he would do, because he couldn't feed Ren and the twins. This huge gift was what made Ren and everyone else in the book start to lead straighter lives.