House of Stairs Characters - Stereotypes & Desires (Emily)
House of Stairs by William Sleator is possibly one of my favorite books of all time. Five sixteen-year-old orphans are dropped in some sort of place made entirely of stairs. No walls, no ceiling, no floor, just endless white flights of stairs and landings. The book is told in limited third person, and each chapter switches to a different character. I have read it twice now, and on the second read-through, I noticed that each character falls into a distinct stereotype, and each character has something that they long for.
Peter is the first character that the reader meets when he is dropped off on the stairs by himself. He is the prime example of “the quiet kid”. Most of his time is spent sitting on one of the flights of stairs in a trance, lost in his own world, not paying attention to anything that’s going on around him. When the story is told from his perspective, the reader learns that he had no friends at the orphanage except for someone named Jasper, who he regarded as an older brother and was very attached to. His main want is someone like Jasper: a protector and a guardian. Jasper boosted his self-confidence and reassured him that he was worthy and loved, and without that figure, he is unable to tell himself those things.
Lola is introduced right after Peter as she spots him and makes her way over to greet him. She is the exact opposite: assertive, with a strong distaste for rules and restriction. She smokes and has gotten in trouble for breaking rules numerous times, including putting a snake in the bed of her orphanage’s mistress. If not for her character development later in the book, she would be a perfect example of “I’m not like those other girls.” Interestingly enough, she is the only one of the five to desire the absence rather than the presence of something: authority. Her whole life, it seems, is made up of rebelling. She smokes underage, she constantly gets detention, and she is considered troublesome by almost everyone that knows her. Throughout the story, she is fiercely independent, and sheer willpower gets her through the times when everyone else despairs.
Blossom is next to be found, sitting on a landing. She is immediately presented as a girly-girl, chubby, with blond, curly hair and a ruffled dress. However, the outfit conceals a very different person. Despite her cutesy outwards appearance, she thrives on hatred, both her own and others’. She lives to turn people on each other, and she knows how people think. In her perspective, the reader gets a glimpse into her scheming thoughts; she takes everything everyone says and files it away to use against them, gossiping whenever anyone leaves the group.
Abigail, like Peter, is quiet and shy. She seems to get embarrassed easily, as well as being unsure of herself. Also like Peter, she wants someone to hold onto. But where Peter desires a protective, older sibling figure, Abigail wants a romantic partner. Her orphanage has always kept boys and girls separate, so being alone with a boy is something that she’s never experienced. As soon as she sees Oliver (discussed next), she falls for him, and her attachment to him keeps her going, despite his manipulation of her. He kisses her, and then pulls away, leaving her cold and confused, but she can’t help but come back, longing for even a morsel of affection.
Oliver, in usual high school circumstances, would be considered a popular kid. He’s good-looking, friendly, and he wants to be a leader. Later in the book, the reader finds out that he is desperate for the position of authority; he can’t stand not being in charge. His friendliness is just a mask. Abigail’s attraction to him is just a tool that he can twist for his own good. In his eyes, everyone else is a competitor for the position of ‘leader’, and he will stop at nothing to achieve it, even if it means hurting others.
Although each character can definitely be stereotyped at the beginning of the book, there are drastic changes throughout the story, most notably in Peter, Lola, and Abigail. Some of them become more vocal and outspoken, or more determined in their beliefs. On the other hand, others show a softer side, dropping mental walls and becoming more compassionate. House of Stairs presents five well-developed characters with clear-cut goals and shapes them so that by the end, they are almost completely unrecognizable from their first-chapter selves.
Final rating: 13/13.
I find it interesting that on someone's first readthrough of a book, they're just going along with the story, and on their second readthrough, they start noticing the finer details of the book, like how you noticed that the 5 main characters fall into stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteYour descriptions of the characters make me think they're all very varied. I going to have to try out the book and see how they all interact with each other!
I really liked how you focused on the individual characters of the book, and from the descriptions you gave, I get a really good sense of the characters. Also, from the way you described them, I think it would be really interesting to see how they interact and how differently they might think. I also really liked how you described some of the connections between characters and how they mean different things to different people such as Oliver believing his connection to Abigail could be used as a tool. Over all, it was really good.
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