chocos

This passage is an extract from the novel “A Home At The End Of The World”, which was written by Michael Cunningham and published in 1990. Michael was born in 1952 in Ohio and now lives in New York. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his novel “The Hours”, which was made into a film.
There are three characters: Jonathan, Bobby (who is a friend of Jonathan, and often visits him to share meals or listen to music) and Jonathan’s mother (the narrator of the story). The scene takes place at Jonathan’s room.
Bobby decides to call Jonathan’s mother to listen to a new record by Van Morrison. She likes the music. But then, Jonathan, who scorns the singer, qualifying him as “a little bit wimpy” challenges his mother by making her listen to a Jimi Hendrix’s song, which he thinks she doesn’t like very much. His intention is to get rid of her. She apparently doesn’t know what to do but refuses to put up with the situation. Then, she proves she is smarter than her son, as she rises to the challenge and dances with Bobby, who seems to be very uneasy with the situation and tries to calm things down. In the end, Jonathan’s mother feels like a winner, because she sees that Jonathan is disappointed, as he realized that she had not cowered before his hard-driving music.
I think the narrator did the right thing to dance to the music, because it was a way to prove to her son that she doesn’t consider Jimi Hendrix as a stranger, and that hard-rock isn’t a new kind of music, but a style created many years ago.
What about you, do you think the narrator did the right thing to dance to the music? Why?

(Source of the picture: www.michaelcunninghamwriter.com/books/home_at_the_end/)