The man with whom Opal and Jacquie live for a time after their mother Vicky’s death. Whether he’s a blood uncle or simply a friend of their mother’s is unclear. The girls ultimately attack Ronald and clear out after he tries to assault a sleeping Jacquie in the middle of the night.
Ronald Quotes in There There
The There There quotes below are all either spoken by Ronald or refer to Ronald. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part I: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (1)
Quotes
“One of the last things Mom said to me when we were over there, she said we shouldn’t ever not tell our stories,” I said.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” “I mean having the baby.”
“It’s not a story, Opal, this is real.”
“It could be both.”
“Life doesn't work out the way stories do. Mom’s dead, she’s not coming back, and we’re alone, living with a guy we don’t even know who we’re supposed to call uncle. What kind of a fucked-up story is that?”
Related Characters:
Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (speaker), Jacquie Red Feather (speaker), Vicky, Ronald
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire There There LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ronald Character Timeline in There There
The timeline below shows where the character Ronald appears in There There. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part I: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (1)
Back on the mainland, Opal, Jacquie, and Vicky go to stay with Vicky’s “adopted brother” Ronald, whom the girls have never met. Vicky tells the girls that Ronald is a medicine...
(full context)
Part II: Jacquie Red Feather (2)
...written to her to confess that when she was a girl, “before everything happened with Ronald,” Opal herself found spider legs in a lump in her own legs. Jacquie feels sad...
(full context)
Part III: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (2)
...own leg—the legs emerged the Sunday afternoon before she and Jacquie left the home of Ronald, the man their mother had left them with after dying. Opal never said anything about...
(full context)
Ronald had been walking past the girls’ rooms at night, and Opal had taken to keeping...
(full context)
The girls went to a shelter, and Opal constantly feared that she’d killed Ronald and would be in trouble. But as days and months passed and nothing happened, Jacquie...
(full context)
