Paperboy

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism, violence, alcoholism, and self-harm.

“The reason I hate talking to people who don’t know me is because when they first see me I look like every other kid. Two eyes. Two arms. Two legs. Crew-cut hair. Nothing special. But when I open my mouth I turn into something else. Most people don’t take the time to try to understand what’s wrong with me and probably just figure I’m not right in the head. They try to get rid of me as fast as possible.”

This passage demonstrates Victor’s characterization at the beginning of the novel. Rather than the confidence he demonstrates later, in this passage, Victor comes across as meek and passive. Yet, at the same time, Vawter represents him as observant and intelligent, defiant of The Treatment of People With Speech Disorders.

“I always picked my way around words and sounds in sentences like I walked around broken bottles and dog turds in alleys.”

At the beginning of the novel, Victor refers to speaking with negative language: Words are obstacles to get around, rather than methods of communication. Vawter uses the setting of “alleys,” places where the more sinister events of the novel take place, as a metaphor for the negativity that Victor feels about speech. However, as the novel continues, Victor becomes more comfortable with himself and his identity as someone with a speech disorder.

“I knew I would get a sharp knife back. Ara T showed Rat and me in the alley one time how he could cut a tin can into a ribbon with a knife he had sharpened. That can looked like the peel of an apple after he got through with it.”

Victor has just handed his yellow-handled knife, which he values highly, to Ara T. to sharpen. Victor consistently demonstrates trust in individuals whom he shouldn’t trust; the “tin can cut into a ribbon” foreshadows the violence of which Ara T. is capable, and Vawter juxtaposes the delicate description of “the peel of an apple” with the sharp knife to suggest that Victor is a vulnerable figure next to Ara T.