Character Clues

Character Analysis

Family Life

Please excuse all those tissues piling up in the trash—we got a little weepy while reading this book. Some of these characters have the saddest childhoods, and those family backgrounds play straightforward roles in shaping who these people are. Gerry, for example, was an orphan who was abused by other children, which is how he came to hate so virulently. Here he is at six:

Hatred was the only warmth in the world, the only certainty. (1.12.2)

In his late teens, he's still full of hate:

He wanted to stew in his own juice in his hideout [...] He got mad. He got mad at Lone who was dead and he especially got mad at [Hip]. (3.14.35)

Several other characters in this book—Lone, Hip—seem predestined by their pasts until they find a philosophy or way of thinking that lets them figure out how to change. Some of them, like Evelyn, never get the chance.

Names

This book gets pretty explicit about how names serve as tools of characterization. "'Name' is the single thing which is me and which I have done and been and learned," Lone thinks (1.11.4). Lone takes his name to mean "All alone." Hip remembers his name "was for 'Hippocrates'" (3.6.2), a famous Greek physician, which clearly connects with the character's role as the doctor who cures the gestalt by giving it a conscience. We think Sturgeon should have gone with Frankenstein, but that doesn't really carry the most positive connotation, we guess.

Thoughts and Opinions

Philosophy is a huge tool of characterization in the book. Hip decides he was a "monster" for seeking popularity, and he discovers an ethic of humanism (protecting humanity) to turn himself—and Gerry—into a being of higher conscience. Thinking actually gets characters somewhere in this book. Or not, as in the case of Mr. Kew. His anti-sex philosophy is, in the words of his daughter Alicia, "mad" (1.14.9). It's an anti-life philosophy: he winds up killing his own daughter Evelyn, enraged that she touched a man.

Actions

Actions speak louder than words, the saying goes. Hip was told—with words—that he was crazy and obsessed for continuing to seek the source of the anti-gravity generator. Unfazed, he persisted in his search for seven years:

It took six months to find town records [...] he found Prodd, nearly a year later. Rumor took him to Pennsylvania and a hunch took him to the asylum [...] Seven years. (3.12.9-15)

For all that this book emphasizes language and thoughts, Hip must take steps into his memory and physical steps out into the world in order to find Gerry and save the day.