Character Sketch Essay

Konnor Drewen

1/12/011

Mrs. Zurkowski

Greens

Character Sketch: Nobody Owens

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

            For my reading over the Christmas break I read the story The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I followed the character in the story named Nobody Owens. Nobody or “Bod” as his foster parents call him has mousey white hair and has no fear for anything in the graveyard because he has lived in a graveyard his whole life and has nothing to fear. Although he has no fear in the graveyard once he leaves he has nothing and no-one to keep him safe like he does in the graveyard. Bod has a family, friends, and a mentor but once the Man Jack who killed his real parent’s returns for him his world starts to come apart and the only thing he can do is use the Freedom of the Graveyard to stop the Man Jack.

            Nobody was only a baby when he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Owens. His parents and sister where killed by a man named Jack later known as Jack Frost who was trying to kill the baby who he never found. The man jack left and the baby crawled out of his crib to explore and left the house and crawled out a hill. He reached the gates of the cemetery where the ghosts of Mr. and Mrs. Owens found him. They discussed keeping him with other ghosts in the graveyard and Silas who is known as a Day-Walker. They finally decided to keep him after The Lady on the Gray told them to. They then decide to name him Nobody because he does not look like anyone. After they named him they gave him the Freedom of the Graveyard which allows him to “Slide” through walls and open and door in the graveyard. Over years he grows older and his supernatural powers increase. He can “Dream-Walk”, and “Fade” at age 8. At that time the author describes him as having white hair and mousey like the other times and that is the only way he describes Bod the whole story. He seemed to be a strange and different child.  

            The book is full of important events but here are two of the more important ones. The first event that is important is when the main character Bod goes to real school with other kids. Before he had just been taught by Silas, his guardian, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, his foster parents, and other ghosts around the graveyard. After some convincing Silas allows him to go. During his first weeks in school he notices that these two kids at school, Mo and Nick, are terrorizing the kids at school. At this time Nobody is fourteen and not afraid of the bullies. Nobody convinces one of the terrorized kids into fighting back against Nick and Mo and it works. Soon no-one is afraid of the bullies. The find out that it was Nobody and they follow him home one day and corner him in the graveyard. Nick throws a punch at him and Bod “Fades” and the punch fly’s past him and hits a gravestone. Terrified the two run away and don’t bother anyone and don’t ever come to school again.

The second event is the most important event when Nobody is confronted by the Man Jack when he is fifteen. As it turns out he belongs to a cult of men known as “The Jack of All Trades.” His name is Jack Frost and he is the leader of a group of five men named Jack. Bod tricks the other four into a portal to the underworld and the final Jack, the one who killed his parents chases him and his friend Scarlett into the grave under the hill home of the Sleer, mysterious beings he has heard but never seen. The Sleer ask Jack Frost if he is their master and he wants all the power he could so he said yes. Unfortunately Jack Frost is consumed by the Sleer which is not fully described but the author said it looked like a huge snake with three heads and faces that look like the face of a corpse. The sad ending of the event and the end of the book is that Scarlett asks Bod if he knew that would happen with Jack Frost and when he responds yes she says that he is evil and is no better than Jack.

            The character of Bod does not change too much over the years that the book takes place. He does change from being a baby of about three to age sixteen. At age sixteen Bod slowly loses his powers of the Freedom of the Graveyard. Over time he becomes more of a person who tries to defend others more than himself. That is true because he defends Scarlett from the Jacks of All Trades even though in the end she destroys his spirit. There are not many ways he changes but his personality changes slowly but surely from a quiet child to a defender of others.

            Even though in Neil Gaimans “The Graveyard Book” Jack Frost tries to destroy Nobody and friends a determined Bod stops him and saves not only his life but the life of his friend Scarlett. Finally at the end of the book Silas tells Bod that he can now leave the graveyard he has grown and is ready for world. So Silas hands Bod a passport that says “Nobody Owens” and sends him out of the iron gate of the graveyard out into the world.