“It’s my room” I yell. “I don’t care” I glare at her. “And why do you have to dress like that?
You make me sick” p.85. Charley still shows his being rude in his teenage time. It is seen from his
reaction when he is at the movie with his mother. He is ashamed to sit together with his mother at the movies. He does not like all the things that his mother does.
In addition, he is angry with his mother because she is the only divorced woman around. He wants his mother to behave like other mothers who stay at home and
do house works. However, his other goes to work to fulfill their needs. He does not know that his mother struggles for him and his sister p.89.
2. Indifferent
Charley Benneto is considered as indifferent or uncaring especially to his mother. He never really cares of his mother’s feeling. At a family dinner, Charley
says that his mother’s cooking is bad just because his father does not like his mother’s cooking. Charley’s mother has tried ten different ways to make the
cooking better and it is still not right for the father p.54. Charley always wants to be at his father side, no matter it is right or wrong.
When Charley and his sister, Roberta, walk home, their mother suddenly appears with his car. That afternoon, Charley realized that there is something
wrong with his mother. Below the eye lids looks black and she keeps clearing her throat. She is not wearing her nursing whites. When Charley looks at her, she
looks lost. She wants to buy ice cream for them but Charley refuses it by making
an excuse that he cannot skip his baseball practice. He gets out of the car and leaves his mother and sister p.83.
Charley does not appreciate what his mother done for her that she has to work in a beauty parlor thus she has to dress right as a beautician. He never looks
for how much his mother works hard for him by ignoring her. He gets embarrassed by his mother and pushes his mother away p.89. By considering his
speech when he is commenting about his mother’s cook, his comment on his mother’s job and her way of dressing, and his manner of rejection at the time his
mother needs her children to be around, Charley is considered as indifferent. His uncaring of his mother’s situation is shown clearly. His quality as in indifferent
child changes into a caring one after he meets his mother again in his dream. He listens to every story told by his mother p.70-73.
3. Indecisive
People should have got self determination to achieve the goal in their lfe. People have to be well-determined once they have certain purpose. However,
Charley Benneto can be considered as an indecisive person because he does not have a firm priority within himself. He just follows someone that has more
influence in his life p.132. For example, when he is close to his father then he will follow whatever his father tells him, then when he is still with his friends he
will follows his friends’ deeds.
From his childhood, his father told him to choose between his parents “You can be a mamma’s boy or a daddy’s boy, but you can’t be both” p.21. He
decides to be a daddy’s boy and it is clearly stated in the novel. So I was a daddy’s boy. I mimicked his walk. I mimicked his deep,
smoky laugh. I carried a baseball gloves because he loved baseball, and I took every hardball he threw, even the ones that stung my hands so badly
t thought I would scream p.21.
This characteristic also can be seen from his manner. When his father is leaving, Charley’s mother has bigger influence on him. Charley goes to college
and he gets good grades for the subjects. However, when his father suddenly comes back into his life, Charley drops out of college to play minor league
baseball as his father wants. He ignores his mother and follows his father again. I dropped out to play minor league baseball, at my father’s suggestion
and to my mother’s everlasting disappointment. I had been offered a spot in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ organization, to play winter ball and hopefully
make their minor league roster. My father felt this was the right time. “You can’t get any better playing against college kids,” he said p.131.
Charley tries to tell the idea to his mother, but his mother refuses it. His mother refusal does not stop Charley to leave his college p.132. It can be seen
that Charley does not have his own life determination. He cannot decide his own choice whether he wants to focus on his study or his baseball career. Once
somebody comes and influences his mind, Charley can directly shift his focus. That Charley is an indecisive person can be seen when Charley finally
decides to go and join the Old Timer Game based on his father’s wish. Whereas, his father has left him after his baseball career fades. Considering the things that
his father has done to him, Charley can just refuse his father. Yet, he lets his father influence him again.
There are a lot of things I wished I asked him. Instead, I said I’d call him back. I hung up the phone. And I let the opportunity my father “finagled”
dance around my head… I tried to focus. I tried to wrap my mother’s birthday party around me. But my father, a thief in many ways, had robbed
me of my concentration. Before the paper plates were tossed, I was down in the basement, on the phone, booking the last plane out p.160.
If Charley has his own principal, he will not let his father influence him easily. He would have refused his father’s wish and continued his life peacefully.
Moreover, his father never gives him any appreciation and affection to him, even his father has hurt him and his family by leaving them. However, in fact, Charley
decides to go to fulfill his father’s wish again. His father has succeeded in controlling Charley’s life again. Later, his indecision puts him in the lower place
of his life and makes him regret all the time. Another example comes from Charley’s experience when his baseball
team, Pirates, loses their final game. At that time, he just follows what his team mates do. When they drink, he just drinks what is given to him. When they curse,
he will curse, too. In brief, he does not have a principle to be himself in life. He just follows without thinking anymore.
Had the Pirates won the championship, there would have been a parade in Pittsburgh. Instead, because we lost on the road, we went to a Baltimore
bar and closed it down. Defeat had to be washed away by booze in those days and we washed ours away thoroughly. As the newest guy on the
team, I mostly listened to older players grumble. I drank what I supposed to drink. I cursed when they all cursed. It was dawn when we staggered out
of the place p.140. Because of being indecisive, he does reckless thing in his family life. He
cannot keep his finance and faithfulness with his wife. He cannot resist when a
young sales woman comes onto him and asks him to put his money in a worthless stock fund. He does not have stand and lets the woman persuades him. After the
woman gets the money, she goes somewhere far away and leaves a problem for him to explain everything to his wife.
A year after my mother died, I did the dumbest thing I’ve ever do financially. I let a sales woman talk me into an investment scheme. She
was young and good-looking in that confident, breezy, two-buttons-undine fashion that makes an older man feel bitter when she walks past him. Then
he gets stupid. We meet three times to discuss the proposal: twice at her office, once on Greek Restaurant, nothing improper, but by the time her
perfume cleared my head, I’d put most of my savings in a now-worthless stock fund. She quickly got “transferred” to the West Coast. I had to
explain to my wife, Catherine, where them money went p.4-5.
4. Weak
