Character Clues

Character Analysis

Sex and Love

The characters' sex lives tell us a lot about them. For a good example, look at David, who reveals what a jerk he is through his attempts to humiliate his wife by forcing her to get naked for his pet film project (while suggesting that she's getting fat, so she'll feel super self-conscious about it). He also repeatedly propositions the narrator.

Sex is also used to show us what a cool customer the narrator is. Recalling when she first met her boyfriend, Joe, she notes that her dude was struck by how emotionally detached she appeared to be after the first time they had sex: "What impressed him that time, he even mentioned it later, cool he called it, was the way I took off my clothes and put them on again later very smoothly as if I were feeling no emotion. But I really wasn't" (3.17). Joe seemed to take her coolness for composure, but the narrator clarifies that she really wasn't feeling very much—which definitely tells us about her character, no?

Actions

Character actions also speak volumes about their personality traits. For example, repeated references to the way David laughs clue us into how phony and cartoonish he is: "He wiggled his moustache and gave a Woody Woodpecker laugh, his eyes baffled" (16.42). This image of him twirling his moustache and giggling like a cartoon character draws attention to just how ridiculous and vapid he is.

Direct Characterization

Of course, sometimes we get a lot of information about characters from the narrator herself. At the end, her inner monologue is the only way we know her opinion of Joe has changed:

For us it's necessary, the intercession of words; and we will probably fail, sooner or later, more or less painfully. That's normal, it's the way it happens now and I don't know whether it's worth it or even if I can depend on him, he may have been sent as a trick. But he isn't an American, I can see that now; he isn't anything, he is only half-formed, and for that reason I can trust him. (27.9)

We're not sure whether that's really high praise, but regardless: via direct characterization, the narrator lets us know that she's decided Joe is a good egg.

Speech and Dialogue

Characters themselves often give us all the information we need about them. Case in point: when the narrator and David are chatting, his callous references to his wife's weight show (or tell) us what a jerk he is: "'[Y]our heart's in the right place. And the rest of her too,' he said to Joe, 'I like it round and firm and fully packed. Anna, you're eating too much'" (11.58). Yeah, gross.