Challenges Can Help People Understand One Another

Challenges can help people understand one another. This is most clearly seen through two relationships, that between Miss Gertie and Melody and that between Melody and the shy boy at the symposium.

The relationship between Miss Gertie and the Brooks is not altogether positive before the novel opens. She is not particularly friendly to them, and she is always by herself. Penny is upset by this as demonstrated by her reminder to Miss Gertie of the pie the woman rejected from her mother. Melody, however, has a little bit different of an insight than Penny does. Because Melody often feels lonely, she can see that her neighbor is likely lonely as well. When she later learns that Miss Gertie was once a famous movie star, Melody can deduce that it must be lonely to go from being a highly visible...