Taylor Markham

Character Analysis

When you're seventeen-years-old, drama and identity crises happen pretty frequently. For Taylor Markham, though, there's a painful reality underlying this that kind of makes her a super hero—after all, she was abandoned by her mom in a 7-Eleven parking lot. Despite the personal pressures of her past and her failure to fully accept herself and connect with others, she still manages to lead the seventh graders in her House, though, as well as lead her school in an underground war. Still, there's a ton of turmoil and conflicted feelings lurking under the surface of her strong exterior. How could there not be?

A Complicated Past

Having your mom abandon you outside a gas station is bad enough, but Taylor's personal history gets even more tangled than that. Aside from a few brief periods where she lived with Hannah and Jude, most of her early years were spent on the run with her mom, who was terrified someone was after them to take Taylor away from her. As a result, there's virtually no record of Taylor's life until the time she came to Jellicoe. She tells Jonah:

"What if I told you that from when this photo was taken until I was ten years old I didn't exist? There is no proof of my existence." (18.106)

Let that sink in for a minute. No report cards. No school records. No family pictures. Instead of a healthy family upbringing, imagine being constantly moved around, shuffled between caregivers, all while dealing with a parent's drug addiction. As if that's not bad enough, we find out from Sam during Taylor's trip to Sydney with Jonah that Taylor was molested by her mom's friend's boyfriend.

This girl has been through the ringer, and that's the just the beginning. Until Santangelo presents her with the photograph of Webb, Taylor doesn't even know who her father was, let alone that he's dead.

Really, it's no wonder that at the beginning of the book, Taylor is totally lacking in people skills, even though she's put in the high-responsibility position of House leader and is selected to lead the Underground Community. Think about it: Why should people expect her to invest in others and trust them when she's dealt with severe neglect for most of her life? It's no wonder that Taylor lies awake at night constantly reminding herself of her identity. Some people say their prayers at night," she says. "What I say is always the same: My name is Taylor Markham. I live on the Jellicoe Road" (6.54).

An Unlikely Leader

Given Taylor's complex background, it's no wonder she's not considered a "popular choice" (1.32) for the position of Underground Community leader. Nonetheless, as the saying goes, some people are born great and others have greatness thrust upon them—and Taylor is definitely the latter. She's picked for the position not because of her great leadership skills, but because her widespread knowledge of the lay of the land is a huge asset to their position in the territory wars.

Not only that, but Taylor even says that "There's nothing about this role that I desperately want" (1.33), only accepting the job because being in charge is better than being subordinate to any of the other candidates. Her apathy about her post shows: She's not a great negotiator, her failure to deal with Jonah Griggs mano a mano gets Ben Cassidy's fingers smashed, and when Hannah leaves, she emotionally collapses and loses control of her life.

Okay, so Taylor's leadership potential doesn't seem that great. But by the end of her story, she's managed to break serious new ground in the territory wars, though not necessarily in the way she imagined. True, she does make some pretty brilliant strategic moves—that thing with using cow poop to hijack the Cadets' invasion attempt, for example. But ultimately, her inside knowledge that Webb intended the war to be a game instead of a hostile competition allows her to forge relationships with her rivals rather than battle them. "I want to yell out to everyone, 'It's a game, these territory wars," she explains. "'They loved each other'" (20.4).

Coming Out of Her Shell

Let's face it—at the beginning of Jellicoe Road, Taylor doesn't exactly sound like someone we'd want to hang out with. Still, that's the awesome part of the journey she goes on: By the time it ends, she's transformed from a cold, brittle girl who fears letting anyone into her life for fear of abandonment into a warm and loving member of a family and community.

For one thing, she stops seeing her role as a House leader as an annoyance. While she might cringe at the beginning of the book when Hannah tells her that some "fragile"(2.8) kids are being transferred to her House, her heart eventually melts toward the group, especially the somewhat exasperating Jessa McKenzie. Check out what happens when the House buys the karaoke machine with their Club House earnings and throws a music bash: "It's during this time that I truly get to know my house," Taylor says. "They make me love them so much without even trying" (21.23). Aw.

For another, Taylor makes herself super vulnerable by allowing herself to fall in love with a guy. And not just any guy—Jonah Griggs, who at the beginning of the book she calls "a state of mind I never want to revisit" (4.2). Well then.

Despite the trauma of their journey three years ago, though, their feelings toward each other soften as relationships form between the faction leaders and the tension of the territory wars dies down. Ultimately, it's Jonah who gives Taylor the chance to go back into her past and find her mother, and it's pretty clear when they say goodbye as he heads back to the Cadets' school that things are really just beginning between them.

Probably the biggest change our girl undergoes, however, is that she goes from being empty and alone to having a family she didn't know existed. Hannah's manuscript not only gives Taylor the key to her parents' identity, it also gives her the clues she needs to discover who Hannah really is to her, the significance of her tragic encounter with the Hermit, and why the Brigadier seems so interested in her.

Taylor may stand alone at the beginning of the story, but her search brings her to the knowledge that people out there love and have loved her, even if they are gone. "For the first time it occurs to me that I'm no longer flying solo, and that I have no intention of pretending I am," Taylor says as she watches Hannah argue with Jonah at the end of the book. "I have an aunt and I have a Griggs, and this is what it's like to have connections with people" (26.8). Finally Taylor can feel the love around her.