Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

When actions provide characterization, we know that it's what characters do that makes them who they are. In hush, of course, one big action defines Daddy: His decision to testify against the white officers who shot Raymond Taylor. Despite knowing the consequences, Daddy testifies anyway because he's more concerned with what is right than with his own comfort.

That night at dinner, Daddy said I'm a man, I can testify. He walked slowly through every room of the house, touching the walls, picking up pictures and putting them down again, fluffing pillows and pressing them to his face. When he got back to the kitchen, he sat down at the table and said We can leave here. Then he leaned into his fists and cried. (6.5)

As a direct effect of Daddy's actions, he and the rest of the Green family are forced to abandon the lives they know. How member each copes with this says a lot about them. For example, Mama turns to religion: "Mama's wrapped her arms around God's legs, Anna says. I guess she figures he'll drag her to a better place" (2.12). Mama's conversion isn't just spiritual: It seems like a place for her to hide while she figures out her new life. Overall, though, she copes better than Daddy, who goes into a deep depression for months and finally attempts suicide.

Cameron/Anna tries to tackle the problem head on. She doesn't like being forced into a new life, so in order to escape and regain some control, she decides to work hard and get into a special college. To do this, she even tells the truth about her situation:

"I applied. I went ahead and did it, not thinking—I mean, hoping but not thinking it would happen—"

[...]

"So I wrote a long essay about why it's so important for me to get out of here." She leaned in closer and the grin disappeared. "I told them, T. I used fake names and a different state, but I told them everything." (21.35, 37)

Toswiah/Evie handles the situation by recording it in her journal and couching the story as fiction, which lets us know she's a person who likes to reflect on events and consider them. She also joins the track team, indicating that she's ready to try something new, to step—or run—into this next chapter of her life.

Family Life

The Greens' family life is always important to them, even before the shooting and their relocation. However, familial roles only become more important as they realize that their little family unit is all they have left. The loving family dynamics are described in the very first scene, one of Toswiah/Evie's memories:

The girl and her sister's own skin is coppery—somewhere between their mother's deep brown and their father's lighter skin. [...]

Soon the father will come home, sit at the head of the table, still dressed in his policeman's uniform, and say, "So, what'd my copper pennies do today?" And the older one will say "Dad!" annoyed that, at thirteen, he's still using this name for both of them. The younger one she can understand—after all, the youngest is still a flat-chested whiny child. But her—she's nearly as tall as he is! (P.3-4)

In this scene, we have the description of the girls as a combination of their mother and father, of their love for their parents, and of their sibling relationship. While these relationships remain in tact during the family's first tough year of living a new life, they still become strained. At first, the girls snipe at each other more than ever, even as they learn to support each other, and as Daddy retreats into his depression and Mama into her religion, the girls move further away from each of them.

Once I had a mother and father and we were all happy. Some days it felt like me and Anna in the world all by ourselves. And the world we're in doesn't make any kind of sense anymore. (14.16)

By the end of the book, though, as each character figures out his or her place in the changed world, the family begins to function well again:

My father looks at me. He seems confused for a moment, but then his smile comes. Slowly. But it comes. The old smile. Daddy's smile. It creeps up from his face like all those memories of our days before here and all those sweet promises—a lot of promise—of what's ahead of us. (28.32)

They still have their work cut out for them, but the family's coming back together. And after all the transformation they've been through, this lets us know that each member is steadfast in their love and loyalty for each other.

Occupation

Cameron/Anna and Toswiah/Evie don't have jobs yet, but their parents are certainly heavily defined by their occupations as a teacher and a cop. Daddy's occupation, of course, is what gets the family into this situation in the first place:

"I believe in the law, Albert," Daddy said quietly. "I wouldn't be a cop if I didn't. My father was a lawyer and his father was a judge. And here I am—a cop. You say it's in Randall's and Dennis's blood—well, it's in mine, too" (5.47).

After the trial and relocation, it's partly Daddy's inability to practice his profession and partly his feeling that he betrayed his fellow cops that lead to his depression.

"I was a cop for fifteen years," my father says to the window. "Fifteen years! When I walk down these streets and see cops, I see that thing in their eyes that still believes in it. Still believes they can protect the world and change it and make it good. Well, you know what—I used to have those same beliefs, but they died with Raymond Taylor. They died the morning I walked into the D.A.'s office. They died when Randall and Dennis got sent to jail for manslaughter. I did that. I sent two cops to jail. Two cops! And it tore me up inside! Tore me up!" (14.31)

The loss of Daddy's occupation is like a loss of self for him, and it sends him spiraling downward. Like Daddy, Mama self-identifies through her profession:

My grandmother taught. Mama says she never thought of doing anything else. Teaching's in my blood, she said. No, she said. Teaching is my blood. It's all of me. (14.38)

Mama's pretty clear about how much being a teacher matters to her, right? Which gives us clues to her character—after all, teaching isn't everyone's calling. Like Daddy, Mama feels called to spend her work life helping others. Needless to say, it's good when her certification finally comes through and she get back to spending her time this way.