Foil

Character Role Analysis

Toby/Joe

The sun and the moon, the eternally happy and deeply sad, Joe and Toby are opposites in almost every way, yet Lennie feels pulled to both of them. She eventually chooses Joe, which is definitely the right choice symbolically—like choosing joy over sorrow—but she doesn't cut Toby out of her life. Instead, he winds up filling an older sibling role for her. So it's kind of like how joy and sorrow continue to exist, side-by-side, in Lennie's life by the story's end.