Janelle's Use Of Direct Characterization

The major internal conflict that Janelle faces throughout the entire book is how she thinks of herself. She always seems to be arguing with herself about whether she is pretty, or whether she has a chance with Devon. Like when she was imagining herself as Mrs. Devon Hope, and then starts saying, “Dream on fool. You can stand here in the girls’ room and practice saying that name ‘til your tongue falls out, or the change bell rings, whichever comes first, and it still won’t ever be true. Face it. Devon is Denzel Washington, and you are Thighs “R” Us.” Here you can see that she doesn’t like the way she looks, and she doesn’t think that anyone else ever will, but then she goes on to say, “I mean, I am smart and funny, and I know I’m a good person.”

When Janelle was thinking, and said, “you are Thighs “R” Us,” in her head, and she thinks about Lupe saying, “you have a very pretty face,” you begin to get the image of what she looks like. The author allows us to then see what some of her characteristics when Janelle says, “I mean, I am smart and funny, and I know I’m a good person,” and then later says, “I wish people could see me on the inside. I know I’m beautiful in there.” So, by the end of her first chapter, she has told us enough directly for us to be able to see what she is like, and what she looks like. I think that there could be a couple of reasons why the author chose to use direct characterization. One reason I believe she did this is that letting you into the character’s mind like she let us into Janelle’s seems very personal, and seems to be more on the indirect side of direct characterization, since it is her thoughts on herself, so you can choose whether or not to believe it. This makes it seem like direct characterization is maybe a bit more okay, whereas in some books it may seem to quick or simple. I also think that maybe the author did this because in this particular book, each character’s chapters are pretty short, and using direct characterization may allow her to describe so many characters in such a small amount of time/space, so if she did not use this technique it would have been harder to get across the point for 17 different