Character Analysis
We never see Tina, but she plays a big part in the third act when, at the tender age of fifteen, she finds herself in a mommy way. Tina "was one of a pack of miserable girls who ran around in tight clothes." (27.1) Her pregnancy threatens to blow a giant hole in Chuck's future, making her a symbol of the kind of powerlessness that periodically grips every hapless character in the novel. Chuck gets off the hook when she marries another boy, but even then, that decision was hers and not Chuck's. Cruel fate embodied in the form of an overweight high school sophomore. Be afraid. Be very afraid.