Josh
BAD CHARACTERISTICS
In the dystopian world, we find that many aspects of Josh’s personality are the same as in the normal world. Josh seeks power and always wants to be the leader and he always seems to get his way by intimidating, belittling and pressuring others. This happens in both the real world and the dystopian world. An example of this happening in the dystopian world is when Josh savagely cuts Skinners arm with a knife, just to prove what he can get away with. “…he began to drag the sliver of glass along Skinner’s arm…‘Now in your world…would I be able to do this?’ He pressed harder. The line along Skinners arm increased, centimetre by centimetre.” –Pg. 59. Josh performs this vicious act knowing that being Skinners gang leader means there is nothing Skinner can do to stop him, because Josh has that kind of power over him.
Do we have sympathy for Josh?
“All those safeboysandgirls who’ve never been freezing or eaten rats or cowered in a tunnel. And think of them, even though they’ve had it all, lying in a coma, or dead on their parent’s nice lounge chair in their lovely, lovely, fucking lovely living room.” –Pg. 117
When we first meet Josh from the dystopian world he seems heartless and obsessed with power. He loves to have control over people and be the leader. “I want to know what I am like [in your world]. Am I a leader?” –Pg. 58 He even demonstrates his power by savagely cutting Skinners arm with a knife for no reason. But, as we get deeper into Josh’s character, we see that growing up on the streets and having to live off almost nothing has made Josh who he is, and that he has developed a strong hatred and great jealousy of the safeboysandgirls and wants to destroy their lives. Josh has had it tough all his life so we can’t blame him for having such a strong hate, he is a victim of his circumstances. But Skinner has lived on the streets for years also, but he is more sensitive to others’ feelings.
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