Fallen Angels Richard Perry Character Analysis

In the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is Richard Perry. In the beginning of this book, Richard was a generous and eager to start as a soldier in the Vietnam War. He soon becomes responsible and understanding of what it is like to be a black soldier in the war and how hard it can be to the other soldiers. Near the end, Richard becomes powerful and alerted near the end of the book. This character clearly relates to the theme of the book, which is age and race can impact somebody’s life a lot. My character, Richard Perry, changed throughout this book from the beginning to end exceptionally. In the starting point of the book, Richard joined the war in Vietnam because his depressed mother couldn’t afford for him to go to college. While he was stationed in Vietnam, Richard met another soldier named Peewee, he was from Chicago and seemed very daring and determined.

Richard slowly began to miss his home and his younger brother Kenny, he realized that it is not easy to be away from home in a long period of time. For example, “It made me sad that Mama had written to Peewee to day that she loved me. She hadn’t even told me that when I was leaving.” (121). At this point in the book, I realized that Richard was very young to be in the war by himself and didn’t know how to act when he was writing to his own mother. This connects to the theme by showing age can have an impact on somebody. As I kept reading, in the middle of the book RIchard Perry and his other soldier and friends who were older, began to get injured and killed in action from the war. Another quote from the book shows that Richard was happy that he hasn’t severly injured anyone or killed anyone else, “I’m not a killer,” I said. He looked at me and smiled. I hated him saying that. I hated his smiling as if he had some dark secret.” (93). This shows that Richard is