An Analysis Of Wells's Leopard

In the story “Leopard” by Wells Tower the narrator is an 11 year old boy who has troubles dealing with his stepfather, he wants to stay home from school because of a fungus on his lip which the kids would bully him for. When he makes the decision of staying home from school, he goes through many hurdles coping with his stepfather which shows us the protagonist is self-conscious and a deceiver. The narrator’s encounter with Josh Mohorn revealed self-consciousness when he told the narrator to “take the seat down there” and “I can’t eat my lunch with your fucking burger in my face” which made the narrator feel like his “irremediably a fungus man.”. These things that the kid say to him and he said about himself show his self-consciousness and how
he feels which cause him to fake being sick which makes him a deceiver. The narrator is exceptionally scared to go to school because he is intimidated by the other kids calling him names such as “Burger King, or Patty, or All Beef” so he tells himself “Don’t go to school today. Play sick.” He tells his mother that he can’t go to school he’s sick and when she asks questions he says “I don’t know what it is,” “It just really hurts.” This behaviour expresses deception which has been repeated many times in the story from the narrator. His deception has almost costed him his life when he acted as if he passed out getting the mail so he can show his mother what his stepfather did to him. Keep in mind that Yancy did all this not to feel embarrassed when he went to school risking his life and fighting with his stepfather. These traits self-consciousness and deception make the narrator’s life is worse than it already is, if he could stop lying and be a bit more obedient maybe his stepfather would like him more and there would be no troubles of him almost dying and getting in an encounter with the cops wouldn’t happen.