The Messenger: Analysis of Major Characters
**The Messenger: Analysis of Major Characters** explores the lives and struggles of several key figures, centering around the protagonist, Charlie Stevenson. A twenty-nine-year-old African American veteran of the Korean War, Charlie navigates the challenges of life in New York City, often feeling trapped in a world of despair and addiction. His longing for connection and artistic expression is juxtaposed against his relationships with others, most notably Shirley, who embodies hope and encourages him to embrace life outside his self-imposed isolation.
The narrative also includes Troy Lamb, a friend whose academic pursuits highlight issues of racial discrimination, particularly when his young son makes a racist comment toward Charlie. Additionally, Maxine, a bright young girl in Charlie's tenement, becomes a source of joy and inspiration for him, while Claudia, a drag queen, offers humor and companionship amid Charlie's loneliness. Ruby Stonewall, Charlie's cousin, provides wisdom and encouragement in the face of adversity, and Grandma, his grandmother, serves as a poignant reminder of his lost innocence and the complexities of his past. Together, these characters enrich the thematic exploration of identity, belonging, and the impact of societal challenges on individual lives.
The Messenger: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Charles Wright
First published: 1963
Genre: Novel
Locale: New York City
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: The late 1950's and early 1960's
Charlie Stevenson, the protagonist, an introspective twenty-nine-year-old African American veteran of the Korean War. He lives in the subterranean junkie world of New York City. Although he works as a messenger for a service in Rockefeller Center, his passion is for reading great literature with the hope of one day producing his own written works. Born in Sedalia, a small Missouri town, he was reared by his maternal grandparents after his mother died; his father had abandoned the family earlier. Charlie has spent his life since the age of fourteen wandering across America in search of a home.
Shirley, the woman Charlie once hoped to marry. Her optimism about life is in contrast to Charlie's sense of despair about living in the squalor of New York City. Shirley invites Charlie to find pleasure in the city by picnicking with him under the boardwalk of Coney Island and by encouraging him to leave his apartment and his wine-soaked existence. She also encourages him to return to Greenwich Village, where he had once found fellow artistic spirits and other intellectuals, but Charlie refuses.
Troy Lamb, a man of Scottish and German descent, one of Charlie's oldest friends in Manhattan. A promising intellectual, Troy has studied philosophy and anthropology at prestigious universities. A fellowship has allowed him to take his wife, Susan Mantle, to study with him in Africa. For all of his interest in African and African American culture, Troy sometimes reminds Charlie, through inadvertent signals, that there will always be signs or gestures of racial discrimination. On first seeing Charlie, Troy's young son calls Charlie a “nigger,” a remark that leaves Charlie wary of Troy throughout the novel.
Maxine, a precocious seven-year-old who lives in the same tenement as Charlie. She is a bright spot in the lonely man's life. Charlie takes her on “dates” to the Statue of Liberty and encourages her artistic impulses. After she draws some abstract pictures, he takes her to the Museum of Modern Art to look at abstract masterpieces. As was the case with Shirley, Maxine's presence provides a warm contrast to the cold world of economic hardship that Charlie experiences as an outsider in the grownup world.
Claudia, or The Grand Duchess, the most prominent of an outrageous cast of secondary characters who populate this novel. Claudia is a male “drag queen” who sells himself for kicks and for profit on the streets of New York. Although Claudia's lifestyle is bizarre, his wild sense of humor, musicality, and general high spirits often provide a stay against Charlie's loneliness and despair.
Ruby Stonewall, Charlie's cousin, a promising blues singer in Missouri before she lost her singing voice. After a series of setbacks—her husband leaves her, her son dies of influenza, and she ends a painful relationship with a white man in Kansas City—Ruby feels defeated in life. In Kansas City, however, Ruby takes a job as a chambermaid and counsels Charlie on how to live with compassion, pride, and self-acceptance in a segregated society.
Grandma, the maternal grandmother who reared Charlie in a small Missouri town in the 1940's and 1950's. Her world-weary grandson visits her in the fall of 1958. Grandma's decline reminds Charlie that the innocence of his past is no longer available to him. She dies during Charlie's visit home, leaving him with only the depression of the here and now in his yellowing room on West Forty-Ninth Street in the heart of Manhattan.