Essay Example on No character does this better than Ed Kennedy

I am the messenger by Marcus Zusak includes many characters that embody the main idea of struggling to find your own identity but in my opinion no character does this better than Ed Kennedy Ed is a 19 year old cab driver who has went through his whole life as an underachiever and had absolutely no idea who he was or who he wanted to be Ed was the character in I am the messenger that no one would want to be like he was broke lived in a shack wasn t good with women and was constantly reminded that he wasn t doing as well as his other siblings But one thing Ed was is that he was very honest with himself Ed s character made sure he told us all of this information at the beginning of the novel In Ed s journey of trying to find out who he is the reader also gets to know Ed better from an emotional standpoint his thought process where the way he acts may stem from and how he deals with these situations that he encounters throughout the novel Despite all of the negatives previously stated about Ed Kennedy one thing that I got from him is that he is very honest with himself and is emotionally stable Throughout the novel you get the sense that Ed isn t the type of person who likes to skew information in order to make himself look better that in fact he really wants the reader to know him for who he is His character gives us all the information about his background and who he is as a person in the first chapter of the book he also is very open about his love for one of the other main characters Audrey From these previous examples you get the idea that Ed Kennedy is a very rational character and that he is good at admitting his faults 

A trait that you don t see present in the other characters in the book Ed is the only character in the book who recognizes his situation as an actual problem and attempts to fix it Other characters like Ritchie and Marv come off as being completely okay with being losers I think one reason that Ed ended up being an underachiever before the cards is possibly because of his mother His Mom doesn t hold back on him when it comes to criticizing what he s doing by any stretch of the imagination Ed s Mom is very honest with him and throughout the book you ll find that his Mom doesn t ever really say anything positive or endearing to him throughout the novel Ed doesn t really show that anything his Mom says to him affects him but I feel like deep down it does I say this because while his brother and sister are constantly praised for doing good and actually being able to achieve certain things Ed was constantly getting cursed at and ridiculed Ed got treated like a middle child and I feel like it may have caused him to travel down a different path as opposed to his siblings Thanks to Ed stopping the bank robbery this was in a way therapeutic to Ed s character because it gave him a feeling of importance after being known in Australia as a hero for once and ultimately made him want to help all of these people listed on the cards Ed stopping that bank robbery made him realize that he isn t as useless to society as he may have originally thought 

The bank robbery being stopped didn t just help everyone in that bank but it also helped Ed ultimately realize that he serves a purpose despite what he and his mom originally thought This encounter definitely helped Ed recognize that he was meant to do way more than just drive around a taxi cab Ed Kennedy finally felt what it was like to be useful after a whole lifetime of feeling like he had no purpose So once that deck of cards with names and addresses appeared in his mailbox after the bank robbery I feel like Ed jumped at the opportunity to prove himself as a impactful member of his community Ed took this this experience and not only helped him find his purpose in life but he also strengthened a lot of relationships including some of his own Near the end of the novel Ed gets to the final card suit Ace and has to help his friends out Some of the things he did was help his friend Ritchie recognize that his life is terrible and that he needs to start acting on it tried helping Marv get to see his kid and also finally helped Audrey learn how to not be scared to have feelings toward someone This didn t just help out his friends but in the end it helped Ed because he not only strengthened the bond between himself and his friends but on top of that he finally was dating the girl of his dreams which is something anyone can respect Ed s purpose in life was definitely to help out others because it didn t only help out other people but it helped him out the most and it was something he took pleasure in