Brooks Weller Blog Post #3

Male hierarchy from good to bad:

 

1. Hugh Miller: Miller served as Attorney General for Willie, providing Willie with his intelligence and high status, until resigning after seeing Willie become corrupt. He is a good character for his moral values and characteristics which earn him the label, “clean hands, pure heart, Attorney General”(193) by Jack.   
2. Sugar Boy: Sugar Boy proves throughout the novel to be primarily a loyal companion to his boss Willie, and never causes harm until his reaction to the spontaneous shooting of his boss.
3. Jack: While Jack at times struggled to understand the actions of his life, and fell under his Great Sleeps or Great Twitch theories, or could appear cynical at various moments, he proved throughout the book to be an honest man and a loyal business partner. He did not let his personal relationships or higher status intrude on his work and lead him to corruption, and - quite the opposite - remained “a student of history”(270), only stating the facts, and therefore making him one of the most trustworthy characters.  
4. Cass Mastern: Despite Cass’s affair with his friend’s wife, ultimately leading to his (friend’s) suicide, Cass spent the rest of his life trying to make amends and redeem himself. While almost every character shows signs of corruption at one point or another, Cass is one of the very few that tries to take responsibility for his actions.
5. Gilbert Mastern: Gilbert seems to be a neutral enough character to make him one of the better male characters; however, his attempts to persuade his brother Cass to not look for or free Phebe from slavery make him a character of lesser moral value. The fact that he also had slaves does not help him out either.
6. Scholarly Attorney: The Scholarly Attorney appears to be a very neutral character, with positive upsides when Jack recalls this character feeding him chocolate. However, his abandonment when Jack was young earns him a spot in the middle of the scale, even with his reasons for leaving.
7. Judge Irwin: The Judge looks at first to be the best character, acting as father-figure for Jack (ironically) and seems to have done no harm during his existence. But like Willie said, “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption...”(72), which eventually uncovers the truth behind the Judge’s path to power, leaving him as a character with both noticeable upsides and downsides.
8. Governor Stanton: While Governor Stanton is a fairly neutral character, his personal decision to protect his friend Judge Irwin ultimately led to Littlepaugh's suicide, and the lonesome life of his sister.
9. Tom Talos: Tom perfectly fits the description of a privileged and cocky child born to a powerful father, leading him to make poor decisions which negatively affect those around him. He skips his sports practices, drives while drunk and crashes, and ultimately leaves his mother to care for a child of a woman that he impregnated.     
10. Willie Talos: Willie originally started out as an honest and hardworking young man, but as he got sucked further into politics, he became more corrupt and began to bribe and blackmail his opponents. He also acted as a poor influence on his son Tom, and caused him to become the cocky boy he grew up to be.
11. Tiny Duffy: To summarize Duffy’s actions, he caused the death of Adam Stanton and Willie Talos, and then took the Governor position.

Female hierarchy from good to bad:

1. Lucy: Despite the horrendous environment and treatment Lucy had to go through, being cheated on and losing her son, she remained the most composed and morally righteous character.
2. Phebe: Probably the most neutral character of the book, Phebe was sold away from her husband simply because she knew of Annabelle’s affair and returned the wedding ring to Annabelle, “there lay the ring on the palm of her hand”(248).
3. Anne: Anne is a good character for her efforts to tend to her dying father and contributions to various charities. Unfortunately, she got herself tangled up in politics and influenced Willie and Adam’s death, because of her affair with Willie.   
4. Sadie: Sadie is not a completely bad person; however, she only acts in ways to support herself and caused the death of Willie and Adam by alerting Tiny Duffy of Willie’s affair.
5. Jack’s Mom: While fairly a neutral character, she lied to Jack about his real father until his death and did not develop the best mother-son relationship with him.
6. Lois: Lois never does anything outright wrong or hurts anyone, but just comes off as an emotionally detached character, and makes it clear that, “Jack and I are perfectly adjusted sexually” (423). 
7. Annabelle Trice: While it seems that her greatest wrongdoing was loving another man, her affair with Cass Mastern led to her husband’s suicide and then she sold her slave Phebe away from her husband. She did this because she couldn’t stand the fact that Phebe knew about her affair, and the cause of her husband’s death.