Jasper Jones

Throughout the novel, the author includes many examples of how the protagonist loves Using Literature to Broaden Perspective. Charlie Bucktin loves to both read and write, and certain themes in the novel are exemplified through the authors and the characters that he reads. When Jasper Jones opens, for example, Charlie is reading Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. Like Twain’s characters, the main characters in Jasper Jones live in a small town, and this type of setting becomes a crucial element of both the plot and character development that dominates the novel. The town of Corrigan almost becomes a character in and of itself, for the isolated, small-minded setting encourages people to engage in gossip and prejudice against certain members of the community. The people in Corrigan have preconceived notions about both Jasper and Laura’s father. Because people are not willing to believe differently than they are told, Laura ends up dead, and Jasper fears getting placed with the blame. Small towns are also important in the novel’s character development. This is primarily because Charlie, the protagonist, grows up in the town and encounters others’ bigoted and closed-minded views, and he begins to define himself in opposition to many of these views. When author Craig Silvey mentions Twain’s book about small-town life from the beginning pages of his own book, he draws attention to these same themes.

While Jasper and Charlie sneak away into the night, they pass Mad Jack Lionel’s house, and their opinions about the old man demonstrate that these two boys are just as influenced by town gossip as they believe others to be. The plot of the novel develops because Jasper hides Laura’s body in the belief that the town will give in to their prejudices and blame him for the murder. He and Charlie both understand and condemn this judgment. This does not, however, stop them from making the same unfounded assumptions about Lionel. Neither the reader nor the boys will learn the whole story about Lionel until much later in the novel, but at this point, the boys’ unquestioning belief of the rumors demonstrates that they are just as willing as other residents of the town to believe the worst about people without proof.

The small-mindedness of the town serves as a contrasting backdrop to the attitude of Charlie’s father, Wes; he does not engage in the hostility and racist attitudes that many people show toward Jasper, who has a part-Indigenous heritage. From the beginning of the novel, the author establishes the fact that Wes is set up in opposition to the town’s prejudiced ways. For example, when Charlie does not understand the derogatory nature of offensive terms like “half caste,” Wes goes beyond merely defining the term and instead opens his library to his son so that Charlie will be able to start Using Literature to Broaden Perspective. His decision therefore stands as an attempt to widen Charlie’s understanding of the world, and accordingly, reading and books are shown throughout the novel to expand people’s views of the world. Wes’s library and literary passions are just the first of numerous ways that Wes is shown to be different from the rest of the people in Corrigan.

In addition to using literature as a means of development, the author puts his characters though a variety of firsthand experiences as well. For example, Charlie comes to two important conclusions during his night in the clearing with Jasper. First, he realizes that a part of him is gone; the incident has robbed him of his innocence, although he does immediately yet understand the nature of his loss. All he knows that he is capable of burying a body and hiding the fact of another person’s death. He does this for good reasons, but he also understands that what he has done is wrong. His own ability to believe that he is standing on the correct side of the ever-present dilemma of right versus wrong has been irretrievably shaken. Second, he comes to understand some of the privileges that he has taken for granted. When Charlie returns home after this harrowing adventure, everything feels different to him. His home has not changed, but he has. If his home represents who he has always been and the comforts he was raised with, the fact that it feels different demonstrates that he no longer inhabits the world in the same way he did before he helped bury Laura’s body. His views of home and morality change when his innocence is stolen.

When Charlie wakes up in the morning, there is an outline of a body on his bed. This outline is reminiscent of either a discarded snakeskin or the chalk outline of a body at a crime scene. This outline symbolizes two different truths about what happened the night before. First, it illustrates how a part of him, his innocence, has died because he cannot unsee what he saw or undo what he did. Second, snakes generally represent evil. As such, the question of evil is raised as well as the question of whether Charlie’s own actions fall into that category.