Cap Anderson, A Character Analysis Essay Example

In the novel Schooled by Canadian-American author Gordon Korman, we meet main protagonist, Capricorn 'Cap' Anderson, a kid from a closed off society named Garland, who's world is his hippie grandmother Rain. After she falls out of a plum tree, while picking plums of course, Cap's whole life starts to spiral, as he enters the city, gets arrested for driving, and starts going to Claverage Middle School. The struggle for Cap is intense, as him being ingenuous, quixotic, scrupulous, and a flower-child wins over his soon to be friends.

Throughout the whole book, Cap is shown not understanding simple things because of how closed off he was from society. Namely, he's naive to Zach and Hugh's efforts at upsetting him and their true intentions. Without this trait, we don't get our Cap Anderson who is very innocent. He's shoved into a new school, and before he knows it, he's the school president. Unlike a normal student council position, the school as a whole has made strides to bully and make fun of whoever they declared the lamest kid at school was, and nominate them as school president. Furthermore, Cap doesn't understand Sophie's cliche teenage moods, and why she's rude to him and younger kids. This supports why Cap can be considered ingenuous.

Many would regard Cap and his upbringing as quixotic; he's idealistic. Cap doesn't know how cruel the real world can be since he's never been exposed to it, hence his lacking of a grasp of reality. Especially when he sends Sophie a bracelet, acting like it's from her dad that left her. First of all, he spent money that wasn't his to spend, even if his heart was in the right place, and he didn't think about putting a quote that would seem like her dad. 'All you need is love' is very Cap, a Beatles quote and he didn't think about what could go wrong. Luckily, Sophie was hoping for it to be her dad so she automatically believed it was from him without a second thought. He blatantly disregards Zach and Hugh's efforts at bullying him into a presentable or normal mold of an 8th grader. Although in the end, Cap's strive for a peaceful school wins the rest of the students over, if this weren't a novel, his beliefs would be ignored and maybe even mocked.

On this whole, Cap Anderson is the declared loser at Claverage Middle School, and nominated for school president. Due to Cap's strong traits, the novel moves along while focusing on the most important part of the plot; Cap and the rest of the students' changes. To illustrate, the students had no intent to be friends with Cap, let alone be nice to him. He was given a dead bird in his locker, his slippers were stolen, and he was even tackled and punched at school. The most interesting part of the novel is where the students realize how Cap changed them and their school for the better. They changed because Cap was ingenuous, quixotic, scrupulous, and a flower-child. It rubbed off on them and they grew a liking to Cap, who didn't sell-out, but instead kept his contagious personality.