Bastard Out Of Carolina Character Analysis

The novel Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison succeeded on shining a light in the unglorified world of the abused and their mental struggles to cope with that stress. The messed up relationship between Bone and Daddy Glen changes Bone’s personality and outlook on life as “the world was full of Daddy Glens” (296). When Anney had Bone at age fifteen, her independence and maturity seemed years older than she was. Anney loved everyone who came into her life, and loved her children unconditionally. We do not know much about what goes on in Anney’s head, but Allison shared that she loved to take pictures, and espically “loved to take picture of him [Lyle]” (6). He had “a grin so wide you could smell the beer” on his breath and Anney fell completely in love with him,
Allison never goes into much detail about how Anney and Lyle built their relationship, but with Glen Allison uses graphic detail. At first impression, Glen seemed like a hard-working man who adored Anney, but like everyone he had his secrets. Anney never took many pictures of Glen, he “kept putting his hand up in front of his face” and “there was only one good one [picture] of Glen and Mama” (38, 42). In that picure “you could not tell a thing about Glen [,] . . . the man’s image was as flat and empty as a sheet of tin in the sun . . . no details––not one clear line of who he really was behind those eyes,” and that right there is the truth behind abuse/sexual assult (43). Granny mentioned her unease around Glen as “‘that boy’s got something wrong with him . . . always looking at me out the sides of his eyes’” but the family justified it as their protectiveness as nobody is “good enough for Anney” (37). More