Nov 21, 2008

Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart | Characters

Iris Courtney and Jinx Fairchild are mirror characters. They are both placed into social classes that have not been empowered by education or money, and both sense themselves as different from others in their social class. It is this sense of difference that draws them together. Iris's advantage is that she is white, while Jinx's is that he is male, but their respective disadvantages victimize them. Iris is a survivor, but at the expense of her capacity for emotion and honesty, while Jinx probably dies in the Vietnam War. One of Jinx's last acts is to send Iris a photograph of himself,...