Characterisation of Adam from „On the
bridge“
The character Adam Lockwood is described as a guy that
smokes, wears a leather jacket all the time, has long black hair and behaves
like some kind of “gangster”. This can be seen in e.g. his leaning against the
wall. Generally speaking he likes women, but that isn’t concerned in the text
any further. The police already knows about him, which tells that he is very
likely criminal. The character Adam is a friend of Seth, the protagonist,
filling the role as a flat character. He relates to him by being a kind of role
model and influencing him in a negative way. In the plot he is left by Seth,
due to his insight.
In the following I am going to characterize Adam
following the text chronologically.
He uses a vulgar language and tells about stories he
fought older guys (l.1), making the impression of an uneducated guy that spends
most of his time provocation others to fight. In line six we see him talking
about the guy he fought, saying that he “just bugged him”; it seems he is
rather stupid and fighting people without a “real” reason. Due to this we can
also say that he is mostly bored, why else would you start a fight with a
random senior?
Another interesting point mentioned in the text is
that he responds to Seth, who asked why he had problems with the police, with
“They just don’t like me.” (l.18). We can interpret this statement in two ways;
he is either not able to reflect things he messed up in the past or he is just
extraordinarily stupid. The first interpretation makes more sense, the more we
analyze his character traits and personality.
Next up is one very important feature of his
personality, especially in connection to the story. Adam is quite good at
influencing people, because Seth feels unsafe throughout the whole text
whenever he does something he normally wouldn’t do (l.29f). At this point we
first see that he is not as stupid as you might think at the beginning; a
certain intelligence is needed to influence people so highly. He is also very
self-opinionated and due to this he teaches his lifestyle to Seth in first
place. This can be seen in e.g. line 24 following.
Additionally we see another one of his worse traits,
his laziness. “He wore the leather jacket to school every day.” This statement
definitely shows that he doesn’t care much about switching his clothes, which
tells that he is more of a lazy type person. But he is not just lazy but also
calculating. He wants to show a consistent image to the people he meets most of
the time and wants to be seen as the “gangster”, the type of guy that doesn’t
care about what he is told and hopes this makes him cool. So wearing the
leather jacket daily shows that he is lazy but also that he doesn’t need to
change his jacket; adding up to the image that you should fear him.
Furthermore we can interpret the thoughts of Seth,
where he doesn’t want to cough because he was afraid it would be uncool
(l.58f), as an example of such fear. Seth wants to be respected by Adam, making
him a role model, but not in a positive way. The protagonist is afraid of doing
such an irrelevant thing as coughing. This reflects his aura and how he is seen
by others that would call themselves friends, at least at this point in the
story.
Another part of his personality comes to the light, when
Adam moves his arms in front of the bridge in order to make the drivers think
he would drop something on them (l.84f). Such behavior is reckless and violent,
concerning how he scares the people and what could happen if the people
misinterpret this. As we already found out he likes fighting seniors without a
real reason; this situation perfectly adds to his boredom and that he likes to
see people suffer. In the throwing-incident he even thinks such behavior is
funny, revealing that his perspective of what is funny and what just violent is
quite distorted.
Also after Seth mentioned the woman could come back
and talk to them, he replied very disrespectful, telling that he wouldn’t have
a problem with “some old lady” (l.99) speaking to them. Connecting this aspect
to his distorted view on life, we see that he doesn’t respect older women or
women at all. At this point we could even go as far as thinking about his
background that is completely missing in the text and speculate about his
childhood; maybe he had never learned that older women are to respect?
In line 109 the story starts to get to its climax,
with him throwing a cigarette at a car; moved by nothing but boredom and
showing off in front of his friend. Throughout the whole text he does most of
the things without any intention but to feel less bored. It looks like he wants
other people to see him and in order to achieve that he must cause problems.
In contrast to his guts and the way he wants other
people to see him, we finally get to see the most interesting and important
part of his personality in the end of the story. “Adam looked pale and pretty
scared too.” (l.123f). Adam is no longer the cool guy that fears no one, at
this point he sees the consequences of his actions flash before his eyes and decides
for himself that he doesn’t want to bear any consequences. He decides to point
at Seth (l.131) and betrays him. Interpreting those information, the image we
have of him begins to change, he is no longer a “gangster” that fears no-one;
he reduced himself to a frightened little kid that points at others in order to
prevent itself from getting trouble.
Additionally in the end, after Seth got beaten up, he
contrives empathy and uses excuses and lies to make him and Seth feel better
(l.156, l.172). His behavior throughout the whole climax of the story was
everything but of integrity. He switches fast between the betrayal of his so
called “friend” and the compassion after he had to bear Adams consequences.
Since he is the reason Seth will walk home with blood
all over his face, he maybe even feel guilty. Yet if we look at the
characterization so far, he is not the type of guy that feels guilty; he thinks
it is funny to scare drivers and has no problem with throwing the cigarette
onto a car.
Maybe this is the first time he is confronted with
consequences of his acts and he finally understands why his behavior was wrong
all the time?
To put it in a nutshell Adam is not an ordinary kid,
he has no respect, influences people, lies, is not very smart, has a distorted
view on life, is reckless and extremely violent and aggressive and does most of
the things out of boredom. But the most important feature of his personality is
that he acts as if he would be alone in the world, not thinking about the
consequences of his actions or how the people around him would feel from them.
Adam is not a nice person at all, which is the reason Seth ended up throwing
the jacket into the trashcan. It was a metaphor representing Seth quitting the
“friendship” with Adam.