Character Analysis Of Robby

Register to read the introduction… Wideman struggles with his ability to listen to his brother, as he explains to the reader how he feels talking to his brother for the first time in six years he states “In the prison visiting lounge I acted toward my brother the way I’d been acting toward him all my life, heard what I wanted to hear, rejected the rest” (p.671). Wideman and his brother shared a lot of the same traits growing up, they both were popular kids that loved to entertain and be the center of attention, and because of that Wideman seemed to sink into his own stories in which he heard what he wanted and rejected the rest, that were alike to his brothers growing up. This again only made Wideman miss what he really should have been listening to, in order to get that true meaning of Robby’s story. Wideman finds out bits and pieces of Robby’s life and puts them together to start moving on that path of understanding Robby’s story without his bias interfering. He realizes that because Robby was the youngest he felt as though he was the least important and that his life was always handled with last after the rest of his siblings. Along with that Robby’s birthday was around Christmas and also near the dates of two different deaths that occurred in the family. So for Robby when his birthday came around he felt as though he really had nothing to be happy …show more content…
He is always faced with the problem of looking at someone else’s situation through his eyes first whether it is his brother or mother; he ultimately alters the real meaning behind the situation to his own bias. Wideman is up front about these issues, he wants his audience to feel what he feels as he speaks to his brother and mother. Wideman struggles to hear them out for who they really are and how they became the way they did. I believe Wideman does this in order to give the reader some common ground and in turn let the reader take something away from his message. Wideman’s style of writing is brought about in a confusing manner, but he does this in order to show how he perceived his family story and how his writing problems come about during that. The overall message to take away from this prose is that questioning yourself while writing is a key step in making sure that you can face your writing problems and use them to improve your paper so that it has that true deep meaning and message that your audience