List of Characters
Narrator—thirty-five-year-old mixed-race man, father of three.
Claire—narrator's white wife.
Cecil, called "C"—narrator's oldest son.
Michael, called "Z"—narrator's second oldest son.
Edy, called "The Girl"—narrator's youngest child, his daughter.
Edith—Claire's mother.
Lila—narrator's mother.
Marshall—narrator's father.
Marco Andolini—narrator's friend who lets him stay at his house for
the
summer.
Laura—Marco's wife.
James—Marco's son.
Maggie—Marco's mistress.
Marta—narrator's previous landlady.
Sally—narrator's girlfriend in high school.
Gavin—narrator's friend from high school, alcoholic, a poet.
Brian—narrator's friend from high school, dies in attack on the World Trade Center.
Donovan, called "Shaky"—narrator's friend from high school, black Jamaican
writer
who is later diagnosed as a schizophrenic and lives on the streets.
Delilah Trent-Usher—black female artist who bumps into narrator and goes
with
him for drinks. She is married to a white lawyer.
Johnny Little Nancyboy—man who gives narrator constructions jobs. Narrator
had
worked with him before, when narrator was Johnny's boss.
Roman—site manager on narrator's first construction job.
Helena—young woman who pays narrator to build a sink in her bathroom.
Character Analysis
There is only one developed character in Man Gone Down—the narrator. Everyone else who appears in this novel is merely named by the narrator and seen through his eyes, often at a distance. The narrator's wife, Claire, and his children have a few lines of dialogue as do some of the narrator's friends and co-workers. But readers know very little of them, except through the narrator's experiences.
So who is this narrator? He is a handsome, intelligent, and large-sized mixed-race male who appears to have many gifts. He is good at carpentry; he is sensitive to his children's needs and to the needs of Claire, his wife. He is, if not an accomplished musician, one that draws people into his songs. He is charismatic although he feels awkward around people. He lacks confidence in himself; though when he focuses on a task that needs to be done, he completes that task successfully. He has been an alcoholic and recognizes his weakness in that area, but despite all the times he has drinks placed in front of him, he has the will power to meet the challenge and stay true to his commitment to never touch the stuff again. The contradictions he faces may be based on the fact that although he is multitalented, he does not know it.
Another reason that the narrator stumbles in spite of his skills could be that he feels a lot of pressure, real or imagined. His mother tells him that he is the light, meaning that she sees something in him—his potential—that could put him in a leadership role. People will follow him if he learns to stand up and make himself known, she tells him. Claire also sees this light. But the narrator does not. What he sees are his weaknesses. He believes his mother and his wife are only imagining his potential. This puts pressure on the narrator to be someone whom he feels he cannot be. He feels weighted down by their impressions of him. How can he lead others, save others, when he is having trouble leading and saving himself? In terms of his family, he feels the weight of his children, being a good role model for them, protecting them from the cruelties that he was subjected to as a child. With his mother, he feels the burden of the entire African-American population. He must be the exemplar black person and lead those who are wanting out from under the yoke of prejudice, impoverished educations,...
(This entire section contains 814 words.)
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and dilapidated housing. The pressure almost destroys him.
Often, in the course of this novel, the narrator questions if he is too damaged to amount to anything good. He had a challenging childhood, one that made him an easy victim of early alcoholism. His parents were both cruel and often missing in his life. He had no leadership and no guidance, except from his friends who were equally mislead. He was taunted and ridiculed by teachers and classmates, store clerks and police. Because of this, the narrator often falls into the role of victim. It is an easy escape by blaming others for his problems. And when the narrator is in the mood for accusing those around him for his mistakes, he also blames the color of his skin. His self-pitying runs this course: it is because he is black that his life has been so hard; it is because he is Native American that people think he is incapable of completing a task in an artful manner; it is because he is white that he does not fit in with black women. While he hoards these thoughts, he looks out onto the world and defines it in terms of race. He becomes overly sensitive to every word that people say, waiting for them to slip up, waiting for them to expose their prejudice against him. And often they do; but not as often as the narrator expects it. He is damaged by his past. He is bruised and scarred. But he is not debilitated, though he imagines that he is.
It is interesting to note that the three male friends that the narrator stays in touch with after high school are the ones who are truly debilitated. Shake is living on the streets. Gavin is more often in a hospital for his alcoholism than he is out. And Brian is dead, killed in the Twin Towers collapse. These were the narrator's closest friends. He identified with them all through high school, and he may continue to think he is like them, but he is not. Part of his soul might be dead. Part of him may want to get lost in alcoholism. Part of him fears he might end up living on the street. But he is a fighter. He has many strengths. He just has to recognize and acknowledge them.
