Eddie had accepted a job that would let him keep an eye for his mother, a position he had been groomed for summer after summer: a maintenance
man at Ruby pier, Eddie never said this-not to his wife, not to his mother, not to anyone-but he cursed his father for dying and trapping him in the
very life he’d been trying to escape; a life that, as he heard the old man laughing from the grave, apparently now was good enough for him. 128
Eddie feels that his life goes with no purpose. Somehow, life is not fair to him that he has to do what his father had done.
Then it causes Eddie to think and see that his life is not fair because he cannot choose a job by his own. Life is not fair to him because Marguerite dies at her 47. Life
is not fair because he has a wounded leg. Then life is not fair for him. Another thing that we can see from Eddie’s characteristic is that he thinks that
living his life is like a routine activity. He cannot feel the happiness in his life; he cannot find the meaning of his life. Everything for him is just casual.
4.1.2 The Portrayal of the Blueman
The Blueman appears as the first person that Eddie meets in heaven. He is a sideshow worker at Ruby Pier when Eddie was a child. This person is different from
common people since he has a blue skin that becomes his distinctive feature, and because of that, people know him as the Blueman instead of his real name Joseph
Corvelzchick. His past life is also important to understand the characteristic of Blueman as the
first person that Eddie meets in heaven. The Blueman is an immigrant that comes to America. He is so poor and does not get enough education.
“Like most immigrant, we had no money. We slept on a mattress in my uncle’s kitchen. My father was forced to take a job in a sweatshop, sewing
buttons on coats. When I was ten, he took me from school and I joined him.” 39
The Bluema n is a nervous child and the environment of where he works makes him more nervous than before.
“I was a nervous child by nature, and the noise in the shop only made things worse. I was too young to be there, amongst all men, swearing and
complaining.” “Whenever the foreman came near, my father told me,’look down. Don’t
make him notice you.” 39
It is not a friendly place for a child to work. People does not treat him differently just because of he is a child. He is an ordinary child who has to work in
order to increase his family economy condition. The Blueman grows up as a nervous man. He has to take medicine in order to
overcome his nervousness. This medicine yet turns his skin into the color of ash. This condition makes him ashamed and agitated. So he swallows the medic ine even more,
and his skin goes from gray to blue. The Blueman’s life changes when he meets and joins a carnival. In the carnival,
he starts to gain his self confidence. He can enjoy his life without scaring people. “This become my home. I lived in a room above a sausage sop. I played cards
at night with the other sideshow workers, with the tinsmiths, sometimes even with your father. In the early mornings, if I wore a long shirts and dropped
my head in a towel, I could walk along this beach without scaring people. It may not sound like much, but for me, it was a freedom I had rarely known.”
42
The Blueman finally can feel the freedom as others have when he joins the carnival. He can interact with others without scares them. He is no more a nervous
person but only a common person with distinctive feature and normal life.
4.1.3 The Portrayal of the Captain
