Character Clues
Character Analysis
Clothing
Let's face it: clothing is important when you're in high school (duh). When you go to a rich, private high school and your family has a house in Connecticut, what you wear conveys your social status. When assessing her popularity, Virginia gives herself -4 points because, "I wear neutral colors, no sparkles, baggy khakis, oversized sweaters" (4.10). She buys her clothes—or rather, Dr. Shreves buys them—at Salon Z, the plus-size section of Saks Fifth Avenue. In other words, it's ain't cheap to look this dull, nor is this how Virginia actually wants to dress.
Virginia would much prefer to shop at Strawberry, a discount chain with sparkly, younger styles, but when she suggests to her mom that they shop for a party dress there, her mother says, "It's so cheap-looking. We're going to a holiday party, not the Jersey Shore" (23.65). Guess who's a bit of a snob? Yup, Dr. Shreves. And guess who's pretty down to earth despite her privileged upbringing? That would be Virginia.
Clothes don't just give us clues about characters when it comes to Virginia, though. Byron attends the Virgins and Sluts party, where girls pay a reduced cover for showing more skin, which gives us a heads up that he's totally down to ogle and objectify girls. And then there's the Bri-girl's extra-small Halloween cat suits, showing us not only their desirability amongst their peers at school but also their confidence.
These are only a handful of examples, though, Shmoopsters, so keep your eyes peeled for what people wear for clues about who they are inside. And be sure to check out the "Symbolism" section, too, because clothing definitely comes up over there.
Family Life
The Shreves clan has some serious codependency issues. When Virginia tells us about Byron, she says:
For as long as I can remember, I've looked up to Byron more than anyone in the world […] Everything I've done in my life—from where I chose to go to high school to how I feel about myself—has been because of my big brother. (15.61)
So when she finds out Byron isn't the perfect child she and her parents have assumed he is, it throws a major monkey wrench in the spokes of her self-image. At least one family member isn't fooled, though. Virginia doesn't get it, but she tells us:
Anaïs is the only person I know who snorts in reference to Byron. The rest of the world worships him, myself included. (2.17)
Note that Anaïs is so over the Byron-centered universe she bails on New York City and heads to Africa with the Peace Corps. In case you don't have a map handy, that means she gets about as far away from all things Byron as humanly possible. And as Byron's true colors emerge, and we see Virginia's parents struggle to accept the shattering of his perfection, we get that for whatever reason, Anaïs possesses clarity about her family that the rest of them have a harder time coming to.
Virginia eventually has to get away from the family, too, even if only for a weekend. As she hangs out with Shannon, she tells us, "I can't help but think about the traditional Thanksgiving that took place on Riverside Drive tonight—turkey and stuffing and Mom rambling on about how she's thankful for woooonderful family and wooonderful friends and a wooonderful life" (21.63). Dr. Shreves defines herself in terms of her children, and she continues to do so at the end of the book. To do anything else would shatter the image of her family she needs to maintain to survive.