The Studs Lonigan Trilogy | Characters & Character Analysis

The Studs Lonigan Trilogy Characters

Studs Lonigan, of all Farrell's characters, is perhaps the most fully alive, the most fully realized, primarily because he is a character built on internal contradictions. From the first, he demonstrates the conflict between his desire to be tough and his attraction toward the softer side of his nature. As a thirteen-year-old, hiding in the bathroom to smoke and feel tough, he thinks of Lucy Scanlon, who is already, and will remain, both his ideal of womanhood and a symbol of his aspirations. All his dreams of success include her, and many of them absolutely depend on her. But early in Young Lonigan (1932), Studs thinks of her, of a time when he had walked her home from school, and his reaction illustrates the inner war he fights, and loses: "He wanted to stand there, and think about Lucy, wondering if he would ever have days with her like that...
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