Smoke and Mirrors: Essay

How Simon Changes throughout the story

      Simon changed several times throughout the book. His personality changed and his attitude toward his parents and life changed.

      He changed from weird to normal then to weird again. He was a very strange boy in the beginning of the book (p1~98). Then he started taking pills and became normal to convince his parents to stay together (p99~125). Later he stopped taking pills and became weird again (126~218). His personality changed from weird to normal to weird.

      Simon’s attitude toward his parents changed. He first was heartbroken all these years. They argue about how not normal Simon is at night and make Simon cry to sleep (p33). They even wanted to live separately (p89~91) and Simon was definitely faithless and upset. He “felt numb” and “couldn’t westle any words out of [his] mouth” (p90). He was so sad he had no idea what to reply to their decision of splitting up. Later in the book, he was mad when his father finally moved out. He snapped in front of his mom, saying, “Have either of you thought about joining the space program?”(p163) He was angry at their selfish decisions. At the end, he was closer to his parents after they split up. His mom would “leave [Simon] notes on the table about what [he] should eat for breakfast and what [they] would have for dinner.” (p207) Simon and his father spent more time together (215~218). Simon’s attitude toward his parents changed several time in this book.

      Simon’s attitude toward life changed. At the beginning of the book, he didn’t seem to like his life. He gets terrible grades (p12~13), do nasty experiments (p13~14), plays dangerous sport (p22~24). He does stupid things in his life and he made his life seem worthless. However, after knowing Andrea’s story, he tried to convince her to stay with his own stories and came up with good reasons to live (p201~202). He even said, “I can’t let you do this. I want you to stay.” (p204) He made life seem important and valuable and convinced her to wake up.

      Simon changed throughout the story several time. His personality and attitude toward his parents and life changed.