The Graveyard Book Character Analysis

Sun Tzu once said, “The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.” Victims of many situations usually are unaware of their trouble until the oppressor portrays it. Unfortunately, Nobody Owens from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, always got into life-threatening incidents. In this novel, the man Jack, an extremely dangerous man to the Dorian family, goes to the Dorian household to avoid problems for himself in the future. Luckily, a toddler was the only one able to escape from the man Jack’s wrath. He runs to a graveyard, where he is picked up by ghosts and given the freedom of the graveyard (ability to do what he wanted in the graveyard, no other living human had this ability), …show more content…
After only a few days of Silas’ departure from the grave Bod becomes annoyed of his “replacement” guardian ( Ms. Lupescu) and allows 3 ghouls to take him to wherever they were going since the food they ate were much “tastier”. Bod, being only a few years of age, didn’t know he got himself into trouble until it was too late. Upon entering the ghoul world, the ghoul tricks Nobody into thinking that they were friendly people and wanted Nobody Owens to become one of them, but with the intention of eating him. Fortunately for Bod, Ms. Lupescu is a hound god and night gaunts in the ghoul world were able to notify her of Bod’s disappearance. When Bod saw Ms. Lupescu, she told him that the ghouls wanted to “beat your brains in with a rock and put you somewhere [...] and then they would eat you” (Gaiman 94). In other words, the decision Bod made when the three ghouls confronted him was one that he wasn’t supposed to do. By having 3 unknown people take Bod away, it makes him the victim of a mugging and endangers his life. Because Bod was always stuck in the graveyard and never allowed out by himself, he feels that asking the ghouls to take him away would give him an adventure of his lifetime, but it turned out to be something Bod never wanted to do again. To reiterate, anyone with this amount of curiosity will most likely do the same and/or become a victim of …show more content…
Being the nice person that Bod is, he goes to an ancient cave where the Sleer dwell and he takes their master’s brooch to try and sell for money so he could buy Liza a headstone. Just as Bod leaves the cave, the Sleer state how their things always comes back, which foreshadows that Bod’s plan doesn’t quite work out. After heading to Abanazer Bolger’s shop, Bod gets swindled into waiting for a response if he would buy it or not. It also just happens that Abanazer has a card to summon Jack, which could cause danger to Bod. Because Bod was only a child, Abanazer took advantage of him and wanted the child to talk about the stone, so instead of waiting for a response, he brings Nobody Owens into a small room, then left the room, “closing the door behind him. He locked it with a large metal key” (Gaiman 124). Several moments later, Bolger invites his friend, Tom, to discuss of the snake stone (brooch) and the two of them argued about the “merits and disadvantages of reporting the boy or of collecting the treasure” and giving Bod the money (Gaiman 130). In short, Bod had once again disobeyed his parents and his guardian by leaving the graveyard. To make matters worst, he got himself into a business that he shouldn’t have started, which makes him a victim of a grown man who had taken advantage of him, but never got away with it.