Jasper Jones

Charlie first introduces Jasper as an outsider. Very few people truly know him, but he is the first person they blame when disasters like fires happen. While most of Corrigan claims that Jasper is a delinquent because he has a single father who is neglectful, it is clear from the beginning that people are especially suspicious of Jasper because his deceased mother was Aboriginal. They hold his racial background against him. Even 13-year-old Charlie understands right away that when a White girl turns up dead in the clearing where Jasper is known to spend time, Corrigan will jump to disastrous conclusions on account of his race. Few people will offer Jasper the empathy he deserves, let alone the benefit of the doubt.

Jasper knows that he did not kill Laura. In a bid for self-preservation, he points toward the town's other regular scapegoat, Mad Jack Lionel. Jack is White, not Aboriginal. Still, because he is rumored to have killed a woman long ago, he is the only person in Corrigan whose outsider status might outweigh Jasper's. Jack inspires fear in the hearts of all the children who pass his yard. The idea that he has killed one of them seems plausible, even if it is in much the same way that Jasper seems to people like a plausible arsonist.

In Chapter 7, Charlie and Jasper learn the truth about Jack's past and present. He did not kill Laura, nor did he purposely kill anyone else. Even so, rumors about him have crystallized and turned him into a "social pariah" just like Jasper:

The town turned its back. The church no longer held an interest in his soul. And Jack Lionel, who had always enjoyed the solitude of his property, simply pulled further away. He severed himself from Corrigan. He went to other towns for food and supplies. He lived very simply off his war pension… And the only people he sees from Corrigan are the few children who dare to steal his peaches, and his grandson, who skirted his property for years, taunting his heart.

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Charlie may as well have written this passage about Jasper, except for one key aspect: Lionel remains a fixture within town, even if he is on the social fringes. He maintains his own property. He receives the state support of a war pension. Jasper is more completely sidelined by society. His retreat is not a property in town, but rather an isolated clearing in the woods. He goes to other towns not to buy things, but to work in the orchards for the money Jack can take for granted. Even the notion that Jasper regularly "skirts" his grandfather's property emphasizes his position on the edge of belonging. It is no surprise, then, that by the end of the book, Jack remains the town boogeyman while Jasper flees Corrigan entirely. Jack can survive any persistent rumors that he killed Laura. The same rumors about Jasper are liable to run rampant and could very well lead to his lynching. The novel leaves the reader with the sense that despite strong parallels between these two characters, race sets their experiences apart in crucial ways. Jack's Whiteness protects him from the worst fates of a scapegoat.

At first, Charlie compares them to Batman and Superman, respectively. Charlie is a little jealous of how fearless and carefree Jeffrey seems to be. To him, Jeffrey is like Superman. Jeffrey may not have supernatural abilities, but his seeming ability not to get bogged down by his fear allows him to walk straight into situations Charlie isn't sure he could face. While Charlie admires his friend's fearlessness, he argues that it might be even braver to be like Batman. Batman has no supernatural abilities but does the dangerous work of a superhero anyway. Charlie has a vested interest in Batman being the more admirable of the two; he thinks of himself as more of an aspiring Batman, always fearful but trying to overcome that fear to do the right thing anyway.

As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Jeffrey's brave face might be concealing more fear than he lets on. He and Charlie are both bullied at school, but Jeffrey is targeted with racial slurs. Both of his parents endure violent, racist attacks. He tells Charlie offhandedly one day that his mother is in a bad mood because several of their family members have been bombed in Vietnam, and now his parents are trying to figure out how to help the survivors. The more Charlie learns about his friend's inner world, the more he realizes that Jeffrey has been acting as though his carefree demeanor is the main thing that distinguishes them. In truth, Jeffrey's carefree demeanor is a mask he uses to cope with and cover over the more profound ways in which his identity makes his life more precarious than Charlie's.

By the end of the novel, Charlie has a better sense of the unique struggles he and Jeffrey each face. Recognizing their differences, he is better able to see that both of them are more like Batman than Superman (even though Superman, like Jeffrey, is an immigrant always trying to blend in). In Chapter 9, when Charlie prepares to steal peaches from Mad Jack Lionel on a dare, yet another instance of dramatic irony emphasizes their similarity in this regard:

Jeffrey tugs at his ear and shakes his head.

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“Fuck it. Then let me come with you. If we go down, we go down together.”

“Jeffrey, no.”

“I will, Chuck. I’ll do it. I’ll go in with you,” he says resolutely.

He really would, too. Even though Jeffrey Lu doesn’t know what I know. I have no reason to be afraid, but he does. He’s as transfixed by the myth of Jack Lionel as anyone in this town, yet he’s willing to put that aside to see me through safely. He’s the bravest person I’ll ever know.

Jeffrey is prepared to help his friend steal the peaches even though, as far as he knows, Jack is as dangerous as everyone says he is. Whereas Charlie once saw his friend as inherently fearless (not exactly brave), he now sees Jeffrey as "the bravest person I'll ever know." Charlie may not need to draw on his own bravery to steal the peaches, but Jeffrey's bravery here, in the face of perceived danger, is exactly the type of bravery Charlie has developed for himself over the course of the novel.