Teacher's Dead

Teacher’s Dead

I’m going to talk about how Lionel’s character is, so how Lisa Ferrier describes him, about how the book presents him to the readers and about how the other characters of the book saw him.

So first let’s begin with Lionel’s real character. As a child he was like his mother says “a normal child”. He used to talk a lot and no one could stop him from talking so much, so he was very open minded. Also, he was very advanced or like his mother says in the book “he was way ahead of the rest of his class”, that means he knew a lot, could have a real conversation with an adult because he had an extensive vocabulary and had no fear to do anything and all that just aged as 9 years old. But then, out of nowhere everything changed. His mother couldn’t recognize her own son. She saw in his behavior that he was like his father but couldn’t understand why he had changed so much. She still loved him but he didn’t talk to her anymore, he even was ashamed to show her to his friend Ramzi. Also, he didn’t want to be with her in the same room and they never had a conversation, just if Lionel wanted something he talked to his mother.

Now let’s continue with how the book represents Lionel to us, so the readers and put it in touch with how the other characters of the book saw him. Until the middle of the book, the author makes us think, that Lionel and Ramzi are the ones with a bad character and that both of them are kids that should be arrested in closed Homes because Lionel is the one who kills Mr. Joseph, so that makes us think that he is aggressive and out of control. Also, he makes us feel afraid to be friends with him because he doesn’t talk to anyone and his appearance doesn’t seem very pleased to us. Nearly everyone else in the book thinks the same, so that they are booth boys who threaten their surroundings, so no one would even think that it could be any other reason.

Only after reading the rest of the book, the author explains the real behavior of Lionel. In reality he was a boy who felt lonely, helpless and powerless. He wasn’t aggressive at all and just the friendship with Ramzi made him feel a little bit better. We can assume, that the fact that his father left and that he maybe thinks it is his fault, that his behavior ended like that and that he maybe had depressions. Knowing all that we can suppose that Terry Stock knew about Lionel’s weaknesses. He was the one who made Lionel’s feeling of being alone and having no one even worse. His gang bullied him and Ramzi, so both of them were in such a bad condition, a condition of selflessness, so they didn’t know what they were doing when they killed Mr. Joseph.

In fact, if Lionel hadn’t had the father he had and if he hadn’t been bullied and threatened like that, he may have been a happy and clever boy with lots of friends.

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