This week--in honor of the new film that just came out--I’m taking a look at the first book in a fantasy series from Ransom Riggs called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. If you didn’t see my last post, I’m sticking to the theme of “beginnings”: techniques authors use in their introductory chapters to make their main character relatable and, thus, entice readers. Essentially, I ask the question, what makes us empathize with these characters? To do this I’m analyzing the introductions of a variety of fantasy novels, from the time we meet the protagonist to the time his or her quest begins. For Peregrine, that takes us through page 66 when Jacob leaves his home in search of the island.
Spoilers ahead!
In Eragon, Paolini wanted his protagonist to be moral and likable. We saw Paolini set up a series of tests forcing Eragon to make the good choices. That way the audience instantly recognized Eragon as a classic moral hero, soon to be fighting injustice. In Peregrine, Riggs approaches the audience from a different angle. He appeals to a different emotion in his audience. Riggs isolates Jacob, painting him as the outcast, the misfit; he’s peculiar.
“…Everything in the world had already been discovered. I’d been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.” (13) This is the first time we meet Jacob—through a past memory--and this one statement tells us everything we need to know about both his character and the story to come. Jacob yearns for adventure, but he just doesn’t belong. All readers can relate; at one point or other in life everyone feels like they don’t fit in, either from social isolation or unfulfilled dreams. It is this feeling and those memories that Riggs targets, so every time Jacob experiences hardship or isolation, our minds immediately jump to those memories.
Jacob doesn’t come from humble beginnings like many protagonists in fantasy stories. He comes from a wealthy family, which owns a grocery store chain - Smart Aid. But that doesn’t mean everything is peachy. His family has forced Jacob to take a floor-level job to provide him with a full working experience before he inherits a significant portion of the company, and he’s far from happy about it. “I’d been trying to get fired from Smart Aid all summer, and it had proved next to impossible.” (23) Rebelliousness and dissatisfaction. From this moment on, Riggs steers his introduction towards a disconnect between Jacob and his parents. This conflict not only motivates Jacob to begin his journey, but it makes it easier for him to leave his family at the end of the novel.
The primary source of contention between Jacob and his parents is his grandfather, Abe. Jacob remains close to Abe, whose mysterious past becomes a driving force for the plot. In contrast, Jacob’s parents seem not to care about Abe. They are tired of his apparent delusions and frequent rants. After a particularly bad spell, we see them argue with Jacob. “Don’t worry Jake, we’ll take care of all this Grandpa stuff//All this Grandpa stuff. ‘You mean put him in a home,” I said. “Make him someone else’s problem.” (28) What frustrates Jacob the most is that his parents simply don’t care. They don’t care about grandpa Abe, and they don’t care that Jacob cares. And after grandpa Abe dies, we only see their disinterest increase.
Jacob’s grandpa’s suspicious death is the plot’s inciting incident. Afterwards Jacob withdraws even further. He saw a monster at the scene of the murder, but no one will believe him. “Even my best and only friend Ricky didn’t believe me, and he’d been there…it was months before I’d see him again. So much for having friends.” (42-43) Everyone thinks Jacob is having some kind of post-traumatic induced delusion. His parents decide to send him to a psychiatrist, and they tiptoe around him to the point where he actually starts to feel crazy. And at the center of it all, Jacob blames himself. “If only I’d believed him was my endless refrain. But I hadn’t believed him, and neither had anyone else, and now I knew how he must’ve felt because no one believed me, either” (38)
Riggs shrinks Jacob’s world, making him feel alone on all fronts. His best friend gone, his parents uncaring, and his mentor dead, Jacob lashes out at those closest to him: To his parents, “I yelled…that they were glad Grandpa Portman was dead. That I was the only one who really loved him.” (40); To Ricky, “What are you my mom?’//Do I look like a truck stop hooker?’…I yelled at him to get out, but he was already going.” (43); To his psychiatrist, “That’s such psychobabble bullshit.’ I spat… I wanted him to get mad, to argue-to insist I was wrong.” (55). Piece by piece, Riggs uses Jacob to remove all the players from Jacob’s life, so that when, for his birthday, Jacob receives one last clue from his grandpa, he is free to start his quest.
By page 66, Jacob has decided to pursue the truth about his grandpa’s death. He leaves everything behind, and although he doesn’t know it, he won’t return. Riggs designed his whole introduction to justify this rebellion. He needed Jacob disconnected from his family and friends so that when, at the end of the novel, Jacob chooses to travel through time leaving all behind, the audience can handle that Jake’s parents will never see their son again (at least not in this book). The future his parents want for Jake isn’t the one that he wants. And because Riggs does a wonderful job bringing us to Jacob’s side, we sympathize with his plan. By contrasting Jacob to everyone around him, Riggs forces us to see that he is a passionate, caring individual, with a drive for adventure. He’s just happens to be a little peculiar.