He recognizes that Junior idolizes him and seems to pursue basketball as a means of escape from the pressure of his family situation. Resentful of Skeetah’s stubborn nature, not to mention of their father’s constant drunkenness, Randall often shoulders the burden of leadership in the family. Randall is generally loyal to their father, assisting him without question in performing chores. He is more social than Skeetah, and more oblivious. Randall is talented at basketball and dreams of earning a scholarship to play in college.
While he often appears grumpy and threatening, Daddy also has a sentimental side, saving pictures of his deceased wife and ultimately caring deeply for his children.
He resents Skeetah’s aloof attitude, as he feels his children have a duty to assist him in preparing for the impending hurricane. Clearly mourning the loss of his wife even after seven years, Daddy is bullish and almost always drunk on cheap beer. He is stubborn and generally resentful of his father, but he has a soft spot for Esch. A lone wolf, Skeetah is prone to superstitious behavior and spends much of the novel seemingly in touch with his environment’s underlying tone of foreboding in this way, he is a kind of prophet figure. Skeetah is, above all, loyal to his dog, China, caring for her as he would for a girlfriend and respecting her feminine power to both nurture and destroy. SkeetahĮsch’s older brother, the second-to-oldest of her siblings (age 16). She fears her father and strives to stay out of his way. Esch is fiercely loyal to Skeetah and cares for Junior as if he were her own child. She frequently consults memories of her mother for guidance and strength, giving her mother’s character an almost embodied presence in her life. Prone to daydreaming, Esch is obsessed with Greek myths and uses them to make sense of her world, obsessively comparing herself to the sorceress Medea. She is athletic and in touch with her own body, but only to the extent that it is non-feminine as she witnesses her body becoming more anatomically feminine, she attempts to distance herself from it.
Growing up solely around men has lent her a sense of independence and a tough exterior, and Esch bears the hardships of falling in love and pregnancy without complaint or weakness. Esch is the only girl in her family and one of few women in the novel in general. The main character and narrator of the novel (age 15).
0 kommentar(er)
