Larry
He feels that he doesn’t fully understand the world of appearances. Knowledge to Larry is something that Jimmy possesses…and he wants to be as informed as him.
“I knew I wasn’t (sophisticated), because I was always being deceived by the world of appearances”
He admires 1) Jimmy and 2) the little details around him; he lives a life of passion – strong amorous feeling or desire. “The least thing could excite or depress me: trees, stained-glass windows, blue hilly streets at evening with the green flare of gas lamps, cigar packs, and perfume”
Larry wants to be recognized by others. He wants others to see him as he sees others; as someone he’d really like to meet because they seem like good people.
“Each morning I was up with the first light, leaning out the window in my nightshirt, and watching through the glasses all the mysterious figures.” As Larry observes people, he builds an emotional connection to them.
“…even to recognize people was to adopt an emotional attitude towards them.”
Larry lives with some Ironic properties. His trap is his impression of Jimmy. He sees Jimmy as sophisticated because of his “knowledge” of others and the stuff he owns: the piano, the toilet, and binoculars; Larry feels that these possessions put Jimmy above him because he doesn’t have them. In order to be sophisticated, he needs to be like Jimmy, or so he thinks, which is why he feels it is necessary for him to go hang out at his house.
“Jimmy’s knowing smile is something I never managed to acquire”
“I was excluded from knowledge by the world of appearances that blinded and deafened me with emotion”
Larry is apprehensive about spying on Jimmy’s neighbors, sensing that it might not be right. He fears the insight into other people’s lives, knowing that he is impressionable, and feels as if it is like stealing from someone. Jimmy on the other hand is all game for going into the attic and sitting there looking into the neighbor’s bedroom.
Larry feels that what he has done is an invasion of someone else’s privacy, and does not wish to do it again. The incident has made Larry feel that while they were watching the neighbors, God was watching him. The observers had become the observed and Larry feels that he will remember the incident forever
Jimmy
Larry looks at Jimmy as being wiser and cleverer than himself and the other children on the street and looks up to him in a manner that could be seen as idolization. He wants to be like Jimmy. This idolization is formed by the fact that Jimmy is older, knows more about the other children than Larry does, and has an indoor toilet in his house.
He lived in a very relaxed manner, as if nothing really mattered to him; he lived more of a life of indifference – a lack of interest or concern.
Jimmy felt that he was too cool to hang out with the other kids on his street.
“He didn’t associate with the other kids on our block.”
Jimmy appears to feel confident in the answers he gives regarding everything and everyone, but the problem is he really doesn’t know a whole lot about them; he just makes silent assumptions to himself. His confident predictions are the reason why Larry has some misconceptions of the world. Jimmy has no connections to the people of his surroundings.
“He better mind himself: that one is dynamite”
He just uses them as characters in this act going on in his head; they entertain him, and he doesn’t care about their emotions one bit.
“Sometime, of course, it’s better than that...you shouldn’t judge it by tonight.”
With Jimmy’s use of the attic and the window, it’s almost like he owns his own personal movie theatre…..?
Screen=Window, Cushioned Seats, Sweets, Dark room=attic
Although having different personalities, Jimmy likes Larry because 1) Larry can stroke his ego a little bit (confidence booster), 2) he’s younger, which makes him appear that much cooler, 3) he now has someone to share his stuff with; he isn’t lonely anymore, 4) he knows that this relation