Fallen Angels By Walter Dean Myers: Character Analysis

In the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is Richie Perry. At seventeen he graduated high school in Harlem, and he wanted to go to college, but his mother couldn’t afford to send him to college since she was an alcoholic. So he joined the army to escape his unfortunate future, but joining the army meant he had to leave his little brother Kenny, who saw him as a father figure since their father left when they were younger. Perry was sent to Vietnam and through his journey, he made lifelong bonds with many different people such as PeeWee, Monaco, and etc. Also in his journey, he suffers from mental and physical wounds. In the end of the book he was completely changed, he has lost his innocence, his sense of normalcy and morality, their hope, and his faith, and the

In the beginning of the novel, Perry was an uncertain teen who didn’t know where his place in life was “The real question was what I was doing, what any of us were doing, in Nam” (69). By the middle of the book, Perry started to become doubtful of himself and started to say Jenkins and Carroll died because of him “In a way i felt real bad just for being alive to write it” (110). And by the last few chapters he really starts to lose his way and lose his judgement from right and wrong “Maybe when we all got back to the world and everybody thought we were heroes for winning it, then it would seem right from there” (229).
During my reading of Fallen Angels, I began to notice the theme, and I think the theme is that War is devastating to people because it can totally mess you up psychologically and physically. Perry for example was already uncertain of his future and his knee injury already had him on edge. towards the end of the book after burning the corpses of his past comrades he lost all faith, and innocence. So the theme of the book is that war is devastating to person both mentally and