Foil

Character Role Analysis

Grandpa/Mr. Kirby

Grandpa and Mr. Kirby are opposites. Mr. Kirby lives to make money. Grandpa thinks making money is stupid and that you should slide down banisters and frolic in duck ponds. Mr. Kirby thinks he's better than everyone and ruins his friend's business because said friend was in his way. Grandpa is friends with everyone; everyone comes to his trial and loves him.

GRANDPA: You may be a high mogul to yourself, Mr. Kirby, but to me you're a failure - failure as a man, failure as a human being, even a failure as a father. When your time comes, I doubt if a single tear will be shed over you.

Grandpa tells ol' Kirbs what's what. And when Grandpa tells him that, he's basically telling him, "Mr. Kirby, you should be more like me."

But are they really opposites? Remember, Grandpa tells Mr. Kirby;

GRANDPA: I used to be just like you once. Then one morning, when I was going up in the elevator... it struck me I wasn't having any fun. So I came right down and never went back. Yes, sir. That was thirty-five years ago.

Grandpa used to be Mr. Kirby… and Mr. Kirby, by the end of the film, is turning into Grandpa. He, too, goes up in the elevator, comes right back down, and walks away from his office—to Grandpa's house, where he, like Grandpa, plays on the old harmonica.

Kirby and Grandpa are a kind of bookended lesson; don't be like that guy, be like this one. Both Mr. Kirby and Grandpa learn that lesson—and you can too. (Unless you don't have an elevator handy. Or a harmonica.)