The End of The Road - Characters

Characters

Jacob "Jake" Horner

Constantly aware of the many possibilities in life, Jake is paralyzed by his inability to choose from among them. In his own words, he is able "to maintain with perfect unenthusiasm contradictory, or at least polarized, opinions at once on a given subject". Completely arbitrary, Horner seems the epitome of unreason to Joe Morgan's super-rationality, though Rennie comments that he and Joe "work from a lot of the same rational premises". He is scrupuluously attentive to details, recording the possible positions of his arms and legs in the Progress and Advice Room; making note of who was on top first, or on which shoulder he was bitten, and which brand of condoms were used in his affair with Rennie; even parsing the grammar of sentences for the reader. He submits even his emotions to the ordering processes of reason. The name Jake Horner is meant to remind the reader of a rationalizing Little Jack Horner, as well as the horns of a cuckold.

Joe Morgan

Joe is consistent, decisive, rational and lacking "craft or guile", and is thus entirely certain of everything. An existentialist, he believes he has removed all accidental values from himself and arrived at his essence. He believes that if something exists, it can be articulated. His definition of marriage requires that "the parties involved be able to take each other seriously". Despite Jake's making fun of Rennie, he likes Jake for appearing to take her seriously, as he believes few men would take a woman seriously. He is voyeuristic in the rationalized probing of his wife for the minute details of her ongoing affair with Jake.

Rennie Morgan

Rennie is married to Joe, whom she looks up to. Joe has twice knocked her out in the past. Jake describes her as a "clumsy animal". Her birth name is Renée, a name signifying rebirth, and her maiden name was MacMahon—"reborn son of man", signifying perhaps rebirth in Joe's image. She is observed and treated like a patient by both Joe and Jake.

The Doctor

The unnamed, elderly African-American Doctor specializes in immobility and paralysis. He is an existential super-pragmatist who sets Jake up with "Mythotherapy", to move him beyond his paralysis by giving him arbitrary decision-making principles and having him take on identities by wearing "masks"—assuming roles. Due to segregation that would not end until 1954, he is unable to buy himself a cup of coffee at the bus station; he works outside of the law, and is unable to give Rennie an abortion in the safety of a hospital.

Peggy Rankin

In line with the Doctor's instructions to Jake of assigning people roles, Miss Rankin is the "Forty-Year-Old-Pickup", a local schoolteacher that Jake has picked up like "a bird who perches on the muzzle of gun". In imitation of Joe, Jake hits her as well, once to woo her, the other time when she will not help him find an abortionist.