This is a plot summary of Richard Matheson's short story "Born of Man and Woman," and is intended to accompany the main discussion article. If you would like to go straight to the that article, please click here. You may also read the accompanying profile of Richard Matheson. Please note that this summary reveals plot developments, and is here for those who have not read the story but who wish to participate in the discussion. Do not continue reading if you do not wish to know how "Born of Man and Woman" turns out.
The story opens with a child apparently recounting the day's events in his diary. This simplicity of a child's mind is revealed in the way the day is indicated not by date but simply by "X."
On this first day, the child was called a wretch by his mother (spelled by the child as "retch.") He wonders what a "retch" is.
It is a rainy day and he describes it in his own words as "This day had water falling from upstairs." He indicates that he watched the rain from the little window, and he further indicates his lack of knowledge and understanding in the way that he describes the accumulation of rain. ("The ground it sucked up the water like thirsty lips. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown.")
The first indication that this child is not "normal" comes when he talks about his mother. She "is a pretty one," he says, and goes on to compare her face to those in a book of movie stars that he has. His father has told him before that "mother so pretty and me decent enough. Look at you..." After saying this on some occasion, the father shook and pulled away from the child.
Then the real ringer comes when the child reveals: "Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. Thats [sic] how I
