A Walk on the Wild Side: Analysis of Major Characters
"A Walk on the Wild Side" is a novel that delves into the lives of various characters navigating the complexities of life in New Orleans, particularly through the lens of Dove Linkhorn, an illiterate young man from Texas. Dove's journey begins after a brief romantic encounter with Terasina Vidavarri, leading him to New Orleans in search of fortune and meaning. He becomes entangled with a colorful array of characters, including Oliver Finnerty, a ruthless pimp, and Hallie Breedlove, a former schoolteacher turned prostitute, whose past reflects themes of identity and loss. Throughout his experiences with con artists, petty criminals, and the struggles of the marginalized, Dove grapples with his own insecurities and aspirations.
The novel also introduces Fitz Linkhorn, Dove's father, whose erratic behavior as a self-styled preacher illustrates the impact of personal demons on family dynamics. Byron, Dove's older brother, represents disillusionment and despair, further complicating Dove's understanding of his roots. Other notable characters, such as Achilles Schmidt and Kitty Twist, add depth to the narrative, showcasing the harsh realities of life on the fringes of society. As Dove encounters suffering and degradation, he ultimately embarks on a journey of self-discovery, reflecting on the fragility of human connection and the pursuit of redemption.
A Walk on the Wild Side: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Nelson Algren
First published: 1956
Genre: Novel
Locale: Texas and New Orleans
Plot: Picaresque
Time: The early 1930's
Dove Linkhorn, a red-haired, six-foot illiterate from Arroyo, Texas. After a brief affair with Terasina Vidavarri, he rides a freight train to seek his fortune in New Orleans. Convinced that anything can happen to someone who can make words from letters, Dove projects unsophisticated country innocence, but his principle of living is to do violence to anyone who tries to push ahead of him. On Perdido Street in New Orleans, Dove walks on the wild side with prostitutes, pimps, con artists, condom manufacturers, and petty criminals. With a pair of con artists, he joins a coffee-selling scam and a free beauty-treatment scam; later, he assists a manufacturer of condoms and peddles salves while wearing a white suit with a pink-striped shirt, yellow suede shoes, and a hat with a matching yellow feather. In partnership with master pimp Oliver Finnerty, he becomes Big Stingaree, a corrupter of supposedly innocent girls for a peep show. In Finnerty's house, Dove is scorned by Achilles Schmidt and attracted to Hallie Breedlove, both of whom figure prominently in his life. Dove is drawn to Hallie by a book; the two go away and live together during an idyllic period while he learns to read and questions her about history. His insecurity about his ignorance dissolves, and she secretly departs, carrying his child. Caught in a raid back at Finnerty's, Dove spends time in jail, where he observes that he has found only suffering and degradation, but that those with the greatest troubles are always the ones most likely to help. After his release, he is beaten and blinded by Schmidt. At the end of the novel, Dove, feeling his way with a cane, returns to Arroyo seeking Terasina.
Fitz Linkhorn, Dove's father, a wild man of Scottish descent. Widowed with two sons, Fitz is reduced to cleaning cesspools and becomes a self-styled preacher. Estranged from his older son and allowing his younger son to grow up illiterate because the school principal is a Catholic, Fitz depends for inspiration on a whiskey bottle in his hip pocket as he harangues the townspeople in the square, preaching against vice and creating dire images of damnation for an audience that considers him crazy.
Byron Linkhorn, Dove's older brother and Fitz's primary antagonist. Disillusioned, angry, and wasting from tuberculosis, Byron straddles the cannon on the town square and taunts Fitz as he preaches. He dies during Dove's absence.
Terasina Vidavarri, the thirty-year-old Mexican owner of a run-down hotel that formerly was a brothel. Terasina has held herself aloof from men since a youthful experience with a brutal former soldier, but she is overcome by Dove's innocence. She has a brief affair with Dove and shares a picture book with him before telling him to leave.
Hallie Breedlove, a prostitute who is one-sixteenth black but lives as white. Tall and aloof, Hallie is a former schoolteacher once married to a white man, who left her when their black child was born. After the child's death, Hallie turned to prostitution, but she has never accepted Finnerty as her pimp. Before Dove arrives, she is Schmidt's lover.
Achilles Schmidt, a former wrestler and carnival worker, a man with a powerful torso whose legs were severed by a train. He moves about on a wooden platform mounted on skates. As a wrestler, Schmidt retained his gentleness; as an embittered, legless man, he scorns Dove's crude performance in peep shows. Violently angry over the loss of Hallie, he beats Dove unconscious and then calls for help. Schmidt is destroyed when onlookers send him and his platform thundering downhill; he crashes into a pole.
Kitty Twist, a seventeen-year-old runaway with straight brown hair. When Dove meets Kitty on the way to New Orleans, she leads him into a robbery from which he escapes. She is caught and sent to jail. Later, when Kitty reappears in New Orleans with Finnerty, she is antipathetic toward Dove.
Oliver Finnerty, the master pimp at Mama Lucille's. Shrewd, brutal, and arrogant, he claims to be five feet tall in cowboy boots and looks like an Australian fox with enormous ears. When one of his girls displeases him, he beats her on the nape of the neck, where bruises do not show.
Mama Lucille, who actually is the madam at Finnerty's house but technically is a maid because the law forbids a black woman from managing a house employing white prostitutes.
Rhino Gross, an obese, weak-eyed former obstetrician. With his wife, Velma, Gross manufactures condoms in a back room covered with reddish dust. Dove briefly works as an er- rand boy for Gross and Velma and learns from their shrewdness.