Foil

Character Role Analysis

Shannon Pearl

Okay, you're probably asking yourself: how the heck is Shannon a foil? It's not like she and Bone are opposites, right? Well, the first clue is just that: Bone and Shannon are the same age, and they're both outsiders, so the book is kind of inviting us to compare them. So that means that we should look at how Bone and Shannon are different.

Well, the first thing we might notice is that Shannon seems a lot more mean-spirited than Bone, considering the she, you know, "simply and completely hated everyone who had ever hurt her" (11.20). We couldn't have put it more plainly.

Once we recognize Shannon as a potential foil, it really helps us understand what her character is all about. With all the ridicule and anger in her life, Bone is at the risk of turning into someone like Shannon: someone who takes hating people very, very seriously. So, seriously, in fact, that she becomes just another version of the people who look down on her. Remember what she says when she and Bone come across a black church?

Shannon definitely isn't the kind of character we want our protagonist to become. Even her death is pretty metaphorical for what unchecked hatred can do to you: burn you all up.