Whatshisface

‘‘‘Number? Who speaketh thus?’ ‘I speaketh thus! How did you get this number?’’’

With dialogue, Korman Links the Past to the Present. Roddy’s diction—’speaketh thus’—infects Cooper diction, and he repeats Roddy’s words, creating a humorous moment. This initial interaction also foreshadows the rest of Roddy and Cooper’s feisty friendship.

“Oh, I am fortune’s fool. Trapped and alone in this ether, surrounded by the blackest night, my only window the occasional glimpse of thee.”

Roddy’s diction foreshadows his relationship to Romeo and Juliet—“fortune’s fool” is a line from this play. His hyperbolic diction provides an abysmal image of life inside a smartphone. It also prompts Cooper to empathize with Roddy’s situation, which leads him to find ways to temporarily release Roddy from the phone.

“Surely not even Heaven itself can be so rich and beautiful!”

Roddy’s ironic and hyperbolic admiration of the 21st century continues. He sees the cars, stores, houses, and traffic lights, and places the sights above heaven. Roddy’s perspective provides a humorous counterpoint to Cooper’s experience of daily life, and reality checks his sometimes-self-pitying outlook.

“I believe I am here to serve a high and noble purpose […] To clear my father’s name and restore his stature as an inventor!”

Roddy’s belief is a red herring or false clue: he is not here for his father but for himself. Roddy’s initial conviction that he must redeem his father’s reputation is ironic, as his dad’s inventions failed more often than they succeeded. As the text progresses, Roddy’s purpose becomes the correction of the literary record, by establishing himself and his play, Barnabas and Ursula, as the real source of Romeo and Juliet. This shift in focus, from his father’s legacy to his own, gives Roddy’s ghost the ability to mature and come into his own in ways that he was denied during his actual lifetime.

“Marlowe. Kyd. Jonson. Shakespeare styled himself a member of this group, though he had not the wit to become their equal.”

Through Roddy’s dialogue, Korman alludes to (references somewhat indirectly) the real playwrights Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and Ben Jonson. Though none of the playwrights are as famous as Shakespeare, Roddy believes that Shakespeare is inferior to all of them. While Roddy’s opinion is certainly controversial, Korman employs this moment to develop his argument about the reputational inflation and idolization of artists like Shakespeare.

“Cooper has to worry: What if Jolie gets so into character pretending to love Brock that she starts liking him for real?”

The narrator demonstrates Cooper’s possessiveness over Jolie by delving into his thoughts and emotions. He doesn’t want Jolie to like Brock: he wants Jolie to like him. Cooper’s insecurity about Jolie’s affections also makes him a sympathetic character, in that it dramatizes the near-universal experience of wondering whether a crush returns one’s feelings.

“I may be Whatshisface, but if my dog had your face, I’d shave its butt and teach it to walk backward!”

Cooper appropriates an insult by Roddy and uses it on Brock, revealing his agency and ability to stand up for himself. The insult centers on the repetition of face. Cooper ‘may be Whatshisface’ but at least his face isn’t as ugly as Brock’s face. The use of repetition as a literary device is also a subtle homage to Shakearean diction, which often employed it for artistic effect.

“I mean totally sorry. I was trying to impress you with how great I was at science. Only I wasn’t as great at science as I thought I was. I feel bad that you had to suffer for my mistake.”

Roddy pushes Cooper to apologize for the stink bomb in science class, and his effusive attempts to make amends for his behavior lead to a sincere discussion with Jolie about honesty. Roddy’s mentoring thus helps Cooper to establish a sense of belonging, both by deepening their own friendship and by providing him with the chance to connect authentically with Jolie.

“Do you take it to the movies too? Is it going to be your prom date?”

Veronica’s snide tone reveals that she is aware that something is off with Cooper’s relationship to his GX-4000. It’s as if he’s dating his phone, or even in love with it. He’s not, but he does have a close relationship with the person trapped inside it. By suggesting that Cooper has a twisted romantic connection with his smartphone, Veronica engages in the popular cultural trope that young men’s fascination with technology reflects their inability to establish meaningful relationships with women.

“A red iron post on your avenue that is so revered by hounds that each one lifteth its leg in respectful salute.”

Roddy’s ironic portrayal of contemporary life continues. With his Elizabethan diction, he turns dogs peeing on a post into a poetic, elegant moment. It also offers Korman the opportunity to creatively Link the Past to the Present, providing Cooper with the chance to reexperience a mundane moment through the eyes of a visitor four centuries removed from his own.

“‘For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’”

These are the final lines of Romeo and Juliet. Watching Brock dance with Jolie makes him feel as woeful as the play’s dead lovers. Roddy notices Cooper’s tendency towards dramatic self-pity, particularly in matters involving Jolie. Roddy empathizes with Cooper’s situation, having lost the love of the beautiful Ursula during his own lifetime.

“But this isn’t about Romeo, is it? It’s about Juliet. And like I said before, forget it.”

The competition for Jolie continues, with Brock knocking down Cooper on the bus to warn him: stay away from Jolie (Juliet). The diction—especially the use of the pronoun ‘it’ to refer to Jolie—suggests that Brock lacks a clear relationship to Jolie. It also dramatizes Brock’s tendency to objectify Jolie. He sees her as a thing that can be fought over, exchanged, and possessed, as opposed to a full human with the agency to choose the relationships in which she invests.

“To thine own self be true.”

The line comes from Hamlet and alludes to Cooper’s search for belonging. Korman uses it to further the message that, to belong within a community, a person must find belonging within themself first. Cooper’s journey demonstrates that true confidence and inner peace depends not on social acceptance and popularity, but on self-acceptance and self-appreciation.

“‘And each of these objects doth bear a seal or marking proclaiming that it be property of a great museum or library.’”

Roddy’s imagery of this secret room develops Wolfson narrative position as an antagonist. These details about the museum and library markings confirm that Wolfson stole many things from other institutions. In this way, the text creates a subtle parallel between Wolfson and his idol, Shakespeare. Both men stole things that they perceived as valuable, and then presented their ill-gotten gains as their own.

“It would serve him right if he breaks his neck.”

Cooper’s flippant statement has critical consequences. Roddy doesn’t break Brock’s neck, but his attack and injures Brock seriously enough that Cooper gets to play the role of Romeo. In addition to inciting a key plot point, though, these words allow Korman to make an edifying comment on the potential of language to have unintended consequences. Cooper was just blowing off steam when he said this, but in doing so, he inspires Roddy to act hurt Brock.

“Truly awful things we had aplenty—beheading and hangings, stretching on the rack, and the dreaded iron maiden. But Brock is not dead, nor is he disfigured for life.”

Roddy juxtaposes Cooper’s idea of “awful things” with his own. As Brock isn’t dead or facing torture, what happened doesn’t seem awful to him. Life in Elizabethan England has given Roddy a harsher view of life than Cooper holds. This moment thus highlights the disparities and differences between the past and present, and it raises questions about the extent to which society has progressed in its views on violence, accountability, and the definition of “awful.”

“And then a voice in his ear supplies the line for him: ‘Is the day so young?’’’

Though Cooper is upset with Roddy for assaulting Brock, he still accepts Roddy’s help during his Romeo audition. Cooper condemns Roddy’s attack on Brock, but he doesn’t reject the benefits. This complicates Cooper’s moralizing lecture to Roddy about the inappropriateness of his aggression. If Cooper really felt moral guilt about Roddy’s act of revenge, one could argue that he had an ethical obligation not to profit from Brock’s misfortune.

“Sixth graders treat him like a hero. Eighth graders talk to him. He belongs—something an army brat doesn’t experience very often.”

The repetition of “him” and “he” in these lines puts the literary spotlight on Cooper, just as Cooper is enjoying the social spotlight his daily life. He belongs in these sentences and, after securing the part of Romeo, he belongs in the Stratford community. Cooper gets what he thought he always wanted, but it doesn’t make him as happy as he believed that it would. He shortly realizes that what is more important to him than social acceptance is feeling like he belongs in his friendship with Roddy.

“But if anything goes wrong, that us turns into 100 percent me. Nobody’s going to arrest a ghost and march him off to juvenile hall.”

Cooper risks arrest to help his friend. Through diction—particularly the use of words like “us” and “me”—Korman shows how only Cooper will have to face punishment. This is a moment of self-sacrifice on Cooper’s part and shows how far he is willing to go on Roddy’s behalf.

“Cooper reacts on pure instinct. He cups his hands to his mouth and booms in the scariest voice he can muster, ‘I am the ghost of William Shakespeare!’’’

Cooper and Roddy use teamwork to scare the guard into an unconscious state. Roddy flies at him, and Cooper pretends to be the ghost’s voice. This imagery shows how Cooper makes his voice frightful and foreshadows his great success as a stage actor later that day.

“As soon as the question is out of his mouth, the horrors of the morning melt away and he’s playing the role he’s rehearsed so well.”

Art represents an antidote to troubles. When Cooper takes the stage, his recent ordeal in the museum vanishes and he enters another world. Up until this point in the narrative, Cooper is often not fully present in his own life: he is anxiously thinking about his past, or about what other people are thinking about him, or about how to deal with current or future bullying. Being on stage disrupts this habit and allows him to fully inhabit the present.

“Pay attention, Roddy. This one’s for you.”

Once again, Cooper puts his friend first. Though doing so could jeopardize his sense belonging in Stratford, he announces that Roddy is the true author of Romeo and Juliet (aka, Barnabas and Ursula). In this moment, Cooper demonstrates how he has fully learned that belonging in his friendship with Roddy must take priority over popularity with those he doesn’t know well.

“You talk about this long-dead boy as if he’s a personal friend of yours.”

After Wolfson says this and the officers don’t find the manuscript, Wolfson recants the allegations and drops the charges. It is as if Wolfson believes Cooper and Roddy are friends. Wolfson’s capacity to empathize with Cooper’s position as a friend of Roddy adds complexity to his character. If Wolfson were a pure villain, he would find this boyhood friendship—whether real or imagined—utterly meaningless. The fact that it stirs something like compassion in Wolfson suggests that some sparks of goodness and humanity still remain.