Responding to "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville

     In class, we read a short story called "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville. It's about a boy named Vincent who has discovered he has a fairy godfather. Vincent is a boy who is very confused about who he is. The story has some important ideas. I think these are: the ideas of others can affect what you think, and that you should always do whatever makes you happy.
     In the story, Vincent is bullied by a boy at his school named Bruce Carrigan because he thinks that Vincent is gay. Because Bruce thinks that being gay is wrong, it shows up a lot in Vincent's thinking throughout the story. For example: when Melvin ( Vincent's fairy godfather) is walking down the street with him after Bruce beat him up, it says "'The first question I thought of 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"'.  Butch forced the idea that gay is bad onto Vincent, so now he believes that acting feminine like Melvin is a bad idea, making him afraid to act the way he wants. Also, when he says "How much trouble is it going to give me to be seen with this guy" makes me think that Vincent is afraid to be seen with someone gay because he thinks it will reflect badly on him somehow. This is a very similar situation to real life, because sometimes kids get bullied for the traits they have so they start to believe they are bad things, when in reality, it's just the bully's thoughts- not their own. Another example in the story is when Melvin winks at a college guy in a cafe. It says '''Will you stop that!' I hissed. 'What's the matter? Afraid of guilt by association? 'No I'm afraid he'll come over here and beat us up..."' This to me shows that Vince is afraid to show/ express his feelings for fear of ridicule or embarrassment from others. It's clear that other people are influencing him in a bad way.
    Vincent seems to be a very self conscience person. He's always wanting to fix himself so that other people will think he's okay. I think that Melvin helps him understand that you should do what makes you happy- not what makes others happy. Because at the end of the day, if you only focus on others, you won't be happy with yourself. In the story, Melvin tells him about his "protective coloration". He says "You learn to use it to get along in the world if you want. Only I got sick of living in the box the world prescribed; it was far too small to hold me. So I knocked down a few walls." This makes me think that Melvin went through the exact same thing as Vincent- trying to hide himself or conform so that people would let him be. Also, when he says it was "far too small to hold me" I think he means people's ideas of "normal" were too narrow for him so he just decided to be himself and not try to mold himself so others would accept him. I think this is really important: that you should be yourself and not let others ideas define you.
    Throughout the story, the ideas of being yourself, and how people's ideas can affect you seem to come up a lot. I think that they are both important issues. Vincent deals with these issues just as kids and teenagers today deal with them. Everyday, all the time. Also, I think a theme from this story would be to be yourself. This is important because it's important to have your own identity, and not let others define you because you'll end up unhappy with yourself; and you should never have to go through that just to please others.