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“Eighteen and vulnerable, I’d felt for the first time the extraordinary dread of wanting something desperately and watching is slip through my fingers, so I took the risk of telling [my father] I would go to Dellecher or nowhere.”
At the start of the novel, as in this passage, Oliver presents himself as vulnerable. In this passage, from Act 1, Scene 4, this vulnerability is linked to a youthful desire, although in the time of the novel it takes different forms. He often notes his conviction that he is less talented than his peers, that he has only survived the brutal cuts to the acting program through luck, and that he does not actually deserve the place he occupies. Still, in this passage and throughout the novel, vulnerability leads Oliver to act with courage and bravery. Rather than capitulate to his father, he risks everything for what he loves, a trait that he will demonstrate again in his decision to protect James from prison.
“But the sight of them huddled together, like five children afraid of the dark, watching me and waiting for some kind of reassurance, made my own fear seem selfish.”
At the end of Act 3, Scene 1, the group sits on the dock, trying to come to terms with their decision to allow Richard to die. Facing the lake, a large dark expanse that appears terrifying and deep, they realize they do not know if their former friend is dead, and Oliver agrees to check. Terror grips his heart but, when he looks back at his friends, their evident youth steels him and he does what he must to protect them. Here, as at the end of the novel, Oliver’s decision turns less on his own feelings or priorities and more on what will support his friends. Rio often uses the language of childhood to depict these scenes, juxtaposing a maturing Oliver against his younger peers, suggesting that he is more prepared for the responsibilities of adulthood than his more sheltered friends.
“I looked at him in the cold moonlight, frail and small and scared, and the thousand questions that had come thronging around me every time I looked at him since Christmas melded and fused and shrank until there was really only one.”
In this passage, from Act 5, Scene 5, Oliver comes to realize that he only has one question for James, and it has less to do with what he does than how he feels. The fight with Richard had turned, in part, on the bully’s assertion that James and Oliver had feelings for one another and here, in a moment of clarity, Oliver realizes that he longs to know what James feels. The act of confession condenses Oliver’s questions, which fuse and shrink, and it has a similar effect on James, who is also depicted as small. But in James’s case, he appears frail and frightened. Confessing does not age him but, instead, makes him seem younger, dependent on Oliver for guidance and clarity. While Oliver grows in stature and moral clarity from learning the truth, James is diminished by his own confrontation with the facts of what he’s done.
