Fathers
In this novel, fathers play an important part of their children's development. They have the choice of ruining or nurturing their children, and in most all cases in the book, the father ends up hurting his child physically or emotionally damaging them forever. Take the Blue Man for example. He becomes blue because he is trying to fix the problem his father is ashamed of him for. The rest of the Blue Man's life is changed because he can never live normally because of his skin. Eddie is also damaged by his father. His father never paid him much attention but the worst thing he did to Eddie was to abuse him. He also took this one step farther and never spoke to Eddie again after Eddie protected himself against one of his beatings. Eddie was never the same because it was as if he lost a parent early.