Romantic

Character Role Analysis

Loyd Peregrina

There's no doubt about this one: Loyd, with his awesome dog, his sweet lines, his shiny hair, and his fabulous listening skills, is the romantic interest in Animal Dreams. Carlo really never had a chance.

If you need any convincing, and we will be really surprised if you did, allow us to illustrate with a metaphor. Remember that female carob tree Codi runs into early on in the novel when she's on a liquor run for Emelina's party? She basically compares the carob to herself: "there wasn't another carob tree in sight. I looked all the way down the main street and down towards the depot. No male carobs. I patted the trunk sympathetically" (7.28).

So Codi is lonely, and so is the tree. Then, at the end of the book, when Codi decides to come back to Grace for good, she runs into Loyd just at the moment she finally sees the other carob tree: "I noticed a carob tree...It must be the male—the mate to the one up by the liquor store. The one I'd been looking for" (25.151). The trees are mates, they make little carob babies, and they belong together. Enough said.