Vy Tran
English 4- AP
Mrs.Morgan
August 31, 2015
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: Connections Analysis The main character in David Wroblewski’s novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, is marked for greatness in a way that many would not realize. Often, physical marks or imperfections are an author’s way of letting their readers know that a character is important. For Edgar Sawtelle, this imperfection is the fact that he is unable to speak. Although on the outside there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with Edgar, the readers understand that there is something distinctly different about him. Due to his “disability”, Edgar sees more, understands more, and perceives more than almost all of the other characters. Claude himself describes Edgar’s watchful gaze when Edgar discovers the relationship between Claude and his mother. Claude describes Edgar as “a boy that spends his days watching”, (Wroblewski 249) and this watching is exactly what allows Edgar to see things that others can’t. He knows that Claude is hiding something after Gar’s death, even though Trudy doesn’t realize it. Edgar knows early on that something is wrong with the way Claude acts. Unfortunately, this inability to speak was also the reason for many conflicts, like when Edgar was unable to speak into the phone while Gar was dying on the floor of the barn. This lack of spoken communication also gives Edgar control over who can understand what he is “saying”. Such as when Glen Papineau was interrogating him about his father’s death. Edgar was able to keep his communications from being understood by an interpreter because he and his mother had their own special form of sign language. This fact provides Trudy an excuse to stay with Edgar during the interrogation, describing to Glen how “A conventional signer wouldn’t make much sense of it.” (130). Having Trudy there likely calmed Edgar while he described