The Real Main Character in "mary's Convert"

The Real Main Character in "Mary's Convert"

In Cyrus Colter's story, "Mary's Convert," it is unclear as to who the story focuses in on. Mary has her own insecurities that have to do with her problem with drugs and trying to find religion. Jerome's problem is that he does not even acknowledge his shortcomings or insecurities. He goes right on through his day wondering when he and Tommy will get a fix of the latest drug. Throughout "Mary's Convert" the reader is unaware if the story centers on Mary and her struggle to realize her inadequacies or Jerome, who does not even acknowledge his own faults or it could ultimately center around both of the characters.

The title of the story leads the reader to believe that this story is going to be all about Mary and her convert with Mary as the center of attention because her name is the one mentioned in the title. Mary is a little crazy the entire story, but one really starts to understand her later on. She stands on the sidewalk and passes out pamphlets that say "Keep Looking Up - Jesus Never Fails" meaning that Mary just wants to believe that there is a God out there that will help her overcome some of her struggles (41). Over the course of the story Mary becomes someone that Jerome trusts with his drug problem and the fact that he also has needle marks on his arm. Mary is the one we look at the whole time as if she's the one that the story is about. The weaknesses that this character holds are shown when a character by the name of Jug Smith tells us who this woman truly is, a drug seeker, or a mainliner as he calls it (41). He tells Jerome that if he lifts up Mary's kluxer sheet to see her needle markings then he will know what Mary is really after. This scene from the story shows us that Mary could be the intended main character because of the fact that we discover so much about her in this one street corner conversation in Chicago. We see several images of Mary throughout the story and the other characters in the story divulge so much information about her that we come to know her almost more than we know Jerome.

Jerome is the character that, by the end of the story, we know so much about and about how he has gotten to this place. We see that he is the drug addict that is trying to understand the world. Jerome seems to throw all of his problems onto Tommy, his so called friend. Throughout the story Jerome says that Tommy influenced him to start doing drugs and that Tommy says that he could "kick the habit" any time that he wanted to almost instantly (41). Though we never see Tommy in the story he has a constant presence that almost makes one think that Tommy is a figment of Jerome's imagination. It almost seems that Jerome cannot handle to realize his own weaknesses so he points the finger at someone else, and, in this case it happens to be the 'Tommy' that we never see. In this way, Jerome is the main character of the story because we have a type of back story to his life that helps the reader judge just where the story is headed. Cyrus Colter places this character in the story as the troubled teen looking for his way in the world and that is when Jerome runs into Mary, who gives him the option to go to God. She gives him the chance to, as the leaflets say, "Keep Looking Up - Jesus Never Fails" which means the same to Jerome as it does to Mary (41).

This story has another possibility to it that shows the reader the importance of both characters in "Mary's Convert." It could be a parody relating to the ever present struggle