Ed Kennedy is our protagonist in the novel, he is nineteen years old, but poses as a twenty year old cab driver for the company 'VACANT TAXIS', with Audrey. His father is deceased, his mother still living in town, his younger brother Tommy, who Ed sees is better at everything, is off at university, his two sisters have moved out and he barely sees any of his siblings. His mother is not entirely impressed at where Ed has ended up, due to the fact that he is just like his father, yet could've gone out and done something else with his life. Ed is completely and utterly in love with Audrey, and he just can't show it, due to the fact that he knows she won't love him back. He normally plays cards with Audrey, Marv and Ritchie, they tend to play a game called Annoyance, and Audrey always seems to sit opposite Ed.
Ed misses his father partially, due to the fact that he drank all their money away, but it really didn't help that his smoking mother would yell at him all the time, swearing like it was her first and only language, which she blames on Ed and his little brother Tommy, stating that they always swore in the backyard. The Doorman was his father's dog, and due to his mother complaining about him after his dad passed, Ed decided to take him when he moved out, he shares coffee and chips with the dog, and is afraid of how he will react when the Doorman passes, due to him being seventeen years old.
Ed is shy, with low self-esteem, he can hardly speak up about his love for Audrey, and has a hard time making up sentences around women like Alice.
He's impulsive, this is shown in the bank scene, where he just goes and picks up the gun without thinking, he also kisses Audrey, making the whole relationship between them awkward for a few moments.
Ed is quite just, even though the man from Edgar Street raped his wife each night, and a gun with one bullet was sent to Ed for this man, he doesn't kill him. Instead, he shoots it up into the sky just to scare the man, which, in turn, makes him leave town and the scenario is solved.
Ed's mother calls about her coffee table that Ed forgot to go and pick up, while she's yelling at him and making him feel bad about himself, he says "Just blame me, Ma" (pp. 30), and it really shows how used he is to this kind of treatment from his own mother, and that he really doesn't care about how much she blames him, he's really not paying attention but will take all the blame for forgetting something.
After receiving the second ace, clubs, Ed heads over to Audrey's place, and when the guy from work she's currently seeing asks who's there, she replies "it's just Ed" (pp. 123), which in turn, makes Ed feel hopeless. It shows that he loves Audrey, but hates it when she sees him as just a friend, she says similar things on other occasions, such as "You're my best friend, Ed" (pp.128), which cut him down. Most things, he would brush off, but when it comes to Audrey, whatever she says affects him deeply, because he honestly cares about what she thinks.
Audrey and Ed are talking about the cards, and who would have sent them, Audrey asks who knows him really well, and Ed tells her "No-one" (pp. 150), meaning that he doesn't entirely share everything with people, even Audrey and the Doorman. Ed has absolutely no clue about who could know him, or how they could know about him, and he hates the fact that they might know him even better than himself.
The audience would react to Ed positively because he seems truthful, and always tells them everything, such as his own introduction, stating that he's an underage cab driver, doesn't have a chance of doing anything great, and is terrible at sex and taxes, due to being this honest and admitting to most things others wouldn't, the audience already has a sense of trust. Ed is definitely a dynamic character, he changes into a completely different person by the end of the novel, due to the aces putting him into situations he wouldn't normally face, all the messages affect him, and begin to shape who he wants to become. I think Markus Zusak was trying to convey that everybody can change, but sometimes they just need a little help, and that by helping others, you can also help yourself, this was communicated very well, due to the fact that in helping all of the people in the messages, Ed changes himself, and it gives him a sense of accomplishment that he's become a better person without doing anything to benefit himself.
Ed misses his father partially, due to the fact that he drank all their money away, but it really didn't help that his smoking mother would yell at him all the time, swearing like it was her first and only language, which she blames on Ed and his little brother Tommy, stating that they always swore in the backyard. The Doorman was his father's dog, and due to his mother complaining about him after his dad passed, Ed decided to take him when he moved out, he shares coffee and chips with the dog, and is afraid of how he will react when the Doorman passes, due to him being seventeen years old.
Ed is shy, with low self-esteem, he can hardly speak up about his love for Audrey, and has a hard time making up sentences around women like Alice.
He's impulsive, this is shown in the bank scene, where he just goes and picks up the gun without thinking, he also kisses Audrey, making the whole relationship between them awkward for a few moments.
Ed is quite just, even though the man from Edgar Street raped his wife each night, and a gun with one bullet was sent to Ed for this man, he doesn't kill him. Instead, he shoots it up into the sky just to scare the man, which, in turn, makes him leave town and the scenario is solved.
Ed's mother calls about her coffee table that Ed forgot to go and pick up, while she's yelling at him and making him feel bad about himself, he says "Just blame me, Ma" (pp. 30), and it really shows how used he is to this kind of treatment from his own mother, and that he really doesn't care about how much she blames him, he's really not paying attention but will take all the blame for forgetting something.
After receiving the second ace, clubs, Ed heads over to Audrey's place, and when the guy from work she's currently seeing asks who's there, she replies "it's just Ed" (pp. 123), which in turn, makes Ed feel hopeless. It shows that he loves Audrey, but hates it when she sees him as just a friend, she says similar things on other occasions, such as "You're my best friend, Ed" (pp.128), which cut him down. Most things, he would brush off, but when it comes to Audrey, whatever she says affects him deeply, because he honestly cares about what she thinks.
Audrey and Ed are talking about the cards, and who would have sent them, Audrey asks who knows him really well, and Ed tells her "No-one" (pp. 150), meaning that he doesn't entirely share everything with people, even Audrey and the Doorman. Ed has absolutely no clue about who could know him, or how they could know about him, and he hates the fact that they might know him even better than himself.
The audience would react to Ed positively because he seems truthful, and always tells them everything, such as his own introduction, stating that he's an underage cab driver, doesn't have a chance of doing anything great, and is terrible at sex and taxes, due to being this honest and admitting to most things others wouldn't, the audience already has a sense of trust. Ed is definitely a dynamic character, he changes into a completely different person by the end of the novel, due to the aces putting him into situations he wouldn't normally face, all the messages affect him, and begin to shape who he wants to become. I think Markus Zusak was trying to convey that everybody can change, but sometimes they just need a little help, and that by helping others, you can also help yourself, this was communicated very well, due to the fact that in helping all of the people in the messages, Ed changes himself, and it gives him a sense of accomplishment that he's become a better person without doing anything to benefit himself.