Jack

Jack is the novel’s central character and protagonist. Although the story unfolds from both his point of view and Wynn’s, its plot is defined more by Jack’s perspectives, experiences, and actions as they are by Wynn’s. More significantly, developments in the book’s main themes are defined by Jack’s history, contemplations, and transformations.

From the beginning, Jack is portrayed as being more pragmatic, more assertive, and less compassionate than Wynn. Both are young men, both attend a prestigious university, both seem to come from relative prosperity, and both have minds and perspectives that seem to have been shaped as much by a positive relationship with literature. Their respective qualities tend to complement each other, with Wynn’s capacity for goodness sometimes tempering Jack’s tendency towards judgmental-ness, and Jack’s impulsiveness and cynicism sometimes pulling Wynn out of a tendency towards complacency and...