George / Bunny Hoover Character Analysis

Dwayne and Celia Hoover’s son, and a “notorious homosexual.” Originally named George, Dwayne’s son is known as Bunny in Midland City. Dwayne’s mental anguish is due in large part to his disillusionment with Bunny’s sexuality, which first came to light during Bunny’s childhood when he confided in Dwayne that “he wished he was a woman instead of a man.” Dwayne responded by sending Bunny to military school, but the United States Military, an institution “devoted to homicide and absolutely humorless obedience,” did nothing but provide Bunny with eight years “of uninterrupted sports, buggery and Fascism.” Bunny excels at military school, but the skills he learns are “useless,” and he winds up playing the piano in the cocktail lounge of the Holiday Inn in Midland City. Bunny is a talented pianist—far too good to be playing in a Midwestern cocktail lounge—but he forces himself to endure through “Transcendental Meditation.” Bunny is “pale” and “unhealthy,” and lives the life of a depressed hermit in a “flophouse” in the most dangerous part of town known as “Skid Row.” Bunny is Dwayne’s primary target when he loses his mind and physically assaults the citizens of Midland City, and as Dwayne beats Bunny’s face of the keys of a baby Grand Piano, Bunny never tries to fight back. After Dwayne’s mental breakdown, Bunny “responds so grotesquely that there is talk of putting [him] in the booby hatch, too.”