Am I blue?

Am I blue by Bruce Coville is about figuring out who you are in a society that says it is not okay. This story is about a boy named Vincent who is trying to figure out if he is gay. He goes through stages of caring and not caring about whether or not he is gat and the steps to how that happens are illustrated in the story. The story starts out with him being beat up by a boy named Butch because he is a “fruit” or “faggot”. As he is still on the ground somebody comes up to him. He says his name is Melvin and he is his fairy godfather but Vincent is afraid he is making fun of him. Vincent thinks of the most negative things in the first stage. He can't let anybody in and let them help him because he is afraid they will just hurt him or make fun of him. One of the lines in the exposition that gave this away for me was “’Go away and let me suffer in peace,’ I growled, splashing muddy water at him.” Melvin tried to make it clear that he was there to help, but, Vincent was not convinced. One part of the story gave away that he was mostly nervous because he didn’t want to be beat up for being gay was “The first question I thought if was ‘How much trouble is it going to give me to be seen with this guy?’ With Butch and his crowd already calling me ‘faggot’ and ‘fruit,’ walking around with a guy who moved the way Melvin did wasn’t going to do anything to improve the situation.” This is what most of his thoughts are in the first stage. He doesn't care if he could be free to be who he is, he is just afraid. In life one is afraid all the time. We are afraid of being hurt and letting people in. I think Vincent is more afraid of getting physically hurt than emotionaly hurt. One could connect to vincent in a very real way in the same way,am I gay, or in his cas am I blue? Is it bad what will I do? This is a problem illistrated in the story and in the world and it is made very clear through out the stages of being okay with it how to solve the issue.

He isn’t really ready to be gay he doesn’t want to be because if he is will it mean he will keep getting beat up? Does it mean he will get beat up in the real world too not just in high school. After Melvin explains why he is there and how he is the first fairy godfather and how Vincent is the first case Vincent gets nervous as shown in this quote, “’Does that have any signifigance?’ I asked nervously. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Me being the first case. Does that mean I’m gay?’ I didn’t mention that I had been trying to figure out the same thing myself for about a year now.” He doesn’t want to be gay because he doesn’t want to be beat up other than that he doesn’t seem to have an issue with being gay. He doesn't think there are many gay people. Melvin explains gaydar to Vincent and he begins to get interested. Melvin talks about how if all gay people were blue for a day then people could stop pretending they don't know any gay people. Melvin offers to let him see the world blue. I think its interesting that he accepted because before he had been so negative about it. He hadn’t really wanted to know that there were gay people in the world. He is begging to have a character change because before he would've said 'No I'm not gay so therefore i have no interest in seeing who is gay!'

Once he sees it he is so surprised that there are so many gay people. I think this is the turning point of the story when he notices that so many people you never thought were gay and other people weren’t, or as he said “it was like seeing the world through new eyes.” He learns about himself in the climax too. He learns kind of what he already knew but wasn’t sure, he learned that he didn’t know if he was gay or not. He was mixed he was not sure if he was gay yet. He wasn't being very negative anymore he wasn't being very positive he was in between. He was in the stage where your not against something but not for something you are neutral.

In the falling action he sees on the news a congressman who is a homophobe is blue. He is angry and than he decides that he will do something for the world not just for him self it wasn’t about him anymore it was about the country. This is the real turning point in the story. This is when he realizes he is not the only person in the world that matters and all the blue people in hiding becasue they are scared deserve to be free. He decides to wish for blue day. Melvin grants his wish. This is what shows that his emotions has changed completely he stopped caring about the fact that he could get beat up for having a tint of blue but he doesn’t care anymore. He was done caring about being gay caring about anything the world in his eyes was about to change.

“If I caused you any trouble with Blueday, I’m sorry. But not much. Because things are never going to be the same now that it happened. Never.” And in the end he says “When I meet the girl of my dreams. Or Prince Charming. Whichever.” This is one of the most important lines of the story because it shows that he really did turn around and stopped caring so much because that was not what was important anymore. He doesn't care that there is a possibility of getting beat up and he doesn't care that the world is different for good. He is ready for the world to change to take on the world from a different angle a positive angle. And he believes everybody should take on the world from a positive angle.