Character Analysis
Ooh la la. What would a young adult novel be without a love interest? What makes the relationship between Jonah—the hardened, take-no-prisoners leader of the Cadets—and Taylor so fascinating is that they don't start out as a couple. In fact, they kind of hate each other. Jellicoe Road is hardly a comedy, but their relationship develops in much the same way lover interests come together in romantic comedies: The two are rivals at first, but gradually begin to break down the walls between them to discover a deeper emotional connection. You've definitely seen this movie.
Like Taylor, Jonah's been through some tough stuff with abuse and abandonment. In fact, some aspects of his family situation make Taylor's life look like The Brady Bunch. Jonah's father was horrifically abusive, beating his mother, burning Jonah and his brother with cigarettes, and holding the entire family hostage with a gun saying he was going to kill them all (21.72). The whole mess culminated with Jonah letting loose on his dad and bashing his head in.
Whoa. Based on this description, it sure sounds like Jonah's dad had it coming. Still, it's not quite that simple for Jonah, who's nonetheless swamped with guilt. "I loved him, you know," Jonah confesses to Taylor, Raffaela, and Santangelo. "That would probably shock people. But I did […] He was a prick, except even pricks don't deserve to be smashed over the head with a cricket bat" (21.70). Three years before, Jonah's guilt even brought him to the point of suicide, but meeting Taylor at the station derailed his attempt to throw himself in front of a train.
We can't say for sure, but it was probably Jonah's inability to cope with what happened to his dad that drove him to not only join the Cadets, but also be absolutely ruthless in the territory wars. And yet sometimes his rough exterior takes too much work to keep up. Remembering their encounter at the train station, Taylor recalls watching the façade fall:
He weeps, tearing at his hair, bashing his head with the palm of his hand, self-hatred pouring out of him like blood from a gut wound in a war movie. (14.74)
Again, this story's told from Taylor's point of view, so it's tough to give a definitive yay or nay on this—but we also think that by taking Taylor to Sydney to find her mother, Jonah's able to find healing for his own pain. What ultimately bonds these two together is that they know what it's like to suffer neglect and cruelty, and learning of Taylor's difficult past helps them to share in each others' difficulties in the present. Perhaps their relationship will be something good produced out of two lives filled with sorrow and loss.