Personal Injuries | Characters & Character Analysis

Personal Injuries Characters

Robert Feaver, universally known as Robbie, is the most interesting and complex character in the novel and clearly Turow's main interest as a psychological type adapted to a legal subspecialty. Robbie is an almost stereotypical (and almost literal) ambulance chaser, a shameless self-promoter who has taught himself to weep on cue in emergency rooms over the injustices dealt to prospective clients. He shades the truth as a matter of practice and is a frustrated thespian whose approach is Method acting, training he puts to good use in attracting clients and winning in court. He has a long argument with Evon, who accuses him of having no core beliefs; for Robbie, everything is a "Play," by which he means a psychological or emotional manipulation to gain advantage. Evon, still a believer in moral absolutes despite her distance from formal religiosity, is appalled by Robbie's relativism but is unable to counter his...
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