Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Black Mountain Mine / U.S. Government / Grace, Arizona / Codi and Doc

There isn't really a clear antagonist in Animal Dreams. One of the central questions of Animal Dreams is how we can feel so disassociated from tragedies we help to cause—so as bad as Black Mountain is for Grace, the struggle to save it happens without any particular heroes or villains, mostly through a bunch of small, daily acts: making piñatas, measuring houses, copying information, and applying for historical status.

So if not Black Mountain or the contras or something like that, what gives this book its tension? As Michael Jackson asked just three years before this novel came out, "Who's Bad?" We'd say the real antagonist in Animal Dreams isn't actually real—it's the imaginary version of Grace, Arizona that Codi and Doc both seem to carry in their minds. It's the place that rejects them over and over, that tells them they have no memories and that they're worthless excuses for human beings. Until Codi realizes that just by doing what she does every day, she's valuable and has a home, she can't begin to really participate in making the world a better place. The old adage is true, she's her own worst enemy.