An essay about the characters of "A Solitary Blue" by Cynthia Voigt
As in any novel, the characters of A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt are portrayed by the author as positive, neutral, or negative characters. In this particular book, the characters are excellent subjects to utilize the positive/negative analysis on because the characters in this book are scattered about the positive and negative spectrum. Some of the main characters are portrayed as purely negative; others are represented by the author as genuinely good people or as neutral individuals. However, the characters of a novel, main characters especially, do not always stay negative, positive, or neutral. The characters often shift slightly or even greatly from one status to the next. This is definitely the case in A Solitary Blue. Three of the main characters in particular display this shifting very clearly: Melody, the Professor, and Brother Thomas.
Melody abandoned her only son and her faithful husband with the sparse explanation that she had to help the "...people everywhere that need me, little boys like you who don't get enough to eat and go to bed hungry every night."(Page 4). Later on, she lied constantly to her son to deceive him into thinking she actually cared about him, and reviled his kind, shy father in the process, blaming him for all the pain Jeff had to suffer. It is apparent that Melody is an overall negative character. However, Melody was not always portrayed as this type of character in the book because the author cloaked much of her true personality from both Jeff and the reader in the beginning of the story. The author manipulated how the reader comprehended the characters greatly by making the reader see things through Jeff's eyes. For example, in the beginning of the story before Jeff went to visit his mother in South Carolina, the author depicts Melody as a neutral character because Jeff views her as neither good nor bad. He simply thinks of her as the woman who abandoned him to do good for the rest of the world, which gave her a balanced
Melody abandoned her only son and her faithful husband with the sparse explanation that she had to help the "...people everywhere that need me, little boys like you who don't get enough to eat and go to bed hungry every night."(Page 4). Later on, she lied constantly to her son to deceive him into thinking she actually cared about him, and reviled his kind, shy father in the process, blaming him for all the pain Jeff had to suffer. It is apparent that Melody is an overall negative character. However, Melody was not always portrayed as this type of character in the book because the author cloaked much of her true personality from both Jeff and the reader in the beginning of the story. The author manipulated how the reader comprehended the characters greatly by making the reader see things through Jeff's eyes. For example, in the beginning of the story before Jeff went to visit his mother in South Carolina, the author depicts Melody as a neutral character because Jeff views her as neither good nor bad. He simply thinks of her as the woman who abandoned him to do good for the rest of the world, which gave her a balanced