Character Clues

Character Analysis

Action

Because Billie Jo's diary includes observations of the people in her life, actions and behavior do a lot of work in telling us what she can't about their characters. For example, when Aunt Ellis visits after Ma and Franklin die, the fact that she doesn't want to hold or even see Franklin's body demonstrates her cold, bitter personality and hints at a troubled relationship with Daddy (38.1). As a more positive illustration (we're such a cheery bunch), Miss Freeland's invitation to the Williams family to let them stay in her classroom (63.7-8) shows how compassionate she is.

Billie Jo rarely makes direct statements about characters up front. Instead we usually see the actions she reports in her diary, and can immediately tell what kinds of people folks are from the way she describes them.

Family Life

The family dynamic of the Kelby home is one of the most important tools Hesse uses to reveal character. The way Ma and Daddy interact with each other is really telling of the kind of marriage they have, especially in the discussions they have about what to do about the failing wheat crops.

Ma repeatedly suggests that Daddy look into some new farming techniques, like digging the pond, or even diversifying his crops, but he's quick to come up with some excuse or just shoot her ideas down (21.1-5). Instead, he continues to pursue wheat farming, convinced that it has to pay off even in the face of impossible odds. Ma is clearly the pragmatic person in the marriage, while Daddy is the idealist and the dreamer—and these roles also spill over into their interactions with their daughter.

Ma deals with Billie Jo in an even, unemotional way, regardless of whether she's asking Ma for permission to play a show with Arley or informing her of her top test score results at school. Daddy, on the other hand, disappointed that Billie Jo wasn't a boy, tries to conform Billie Jo to a boy's image anyway, giving her a masculine name and teaching her how to work the farm.

This is why we need to see two sections of chapters illustrating normal life for the Kelbys before the accident happens—we have to understand what Ma means to Daddy and Billie Jo, and what they stand to lose from her absence before she actually dies.

Physical Appearance

The fact that the story takes place in the Depression would probably be enough to show the hardships its characters face, but descriptions of appearances play a huge role in recreating the time period visually.

The words Hesse chooses to illustrate the characters are extremely telling; Ma is "long and skinny" (13.1), worn from her hard life on the farm; Billie Jo describes herself as "long-legged" and "red-haired" (28.1), and though she might not know it, we recognize her as bright and capable of going far. When Billie Jo meets the man on the train, she says he has "a deeper shadow to those eyes / like ashes, / like death" (100.1)—and just try not to shudder when she does.

Physical appearances always reveal the personality and emotional state of characters, so don't gloss over them, Shmoopsters—on more than one occasion, the clothes make the man in this book.