Open prompt #2

The amount of time a character has in a story doesn't reflect how much the character affects the story, in fact many stories such as Walk Two Moons. In this novel, the main character's mother is deceased, her upcoming birthday is the reason for trip that Sal, the main character, embarks on with her grandparents. The characters develop immensely on this trip to retrace Sal's mother's steps. Despite the fact that Sal's mother never appeared in the story alive, she still highly affected the action, development, and theme of the work.

The death of her mother takes a toll on Sal's whole family. Her father and her decide to move to Euclid, Ohio to restart their lives. This move, driven by the death of the mother, allows them to meet interesting characters that also contribute to the novel's action. Sal befriends Phoebe, a young girl who is in a similar predicament as Sal; her mom too in no longer with them. By aiding Phoebe finds out where her mother is Sal attempts to understand her mother's circumstances as well. Sal's mother decided to take a trip on her own to Idaho to visit family, on her way there she was killed in a bus accident. The major even however, that was caused by Sal's mother, was the road trip to Idaho to visit her grave on her birthday. This trip was the major component in the story where everything is revealed. We are learn about Phoebe and the other characters during said road trip.

In addition to contributing to action, Sal's mother also affected the development of the characters. The actions mentioned above which were caused by the mother also lead to major character development, especially seen in Sal. At the end of the book Sal finally comes to terms with the death of her mother and improves her relationship with her father and Mrs. Cadaver. During the trio with her grandparents Sal, finally finds out the whole story behind her mother's death and much confusion and anger is cured. She also comes to terms with her father temperament, and learns to let him in more.

The reason behind the character development is clearly the them of the novel; do not come to conclusions about someone until you fully understand their situation. Sal prejudged a lot of characters in the story like Mrs. Cadaver and her mother. Sal quickly wrote of Mrs. Cadaver and thought that she was possibly a serial killer because of her coincidentally morbid name. However it turned out that Mrs. Cadaver herself had just suffered a hard loss and that she was the only survivor of Sal's mom's bus accident. Sal also didn't realize how miserabel her mother truly was when she left for idaho. She realizes both of these during her road trip with her grandparents to see her mother's grave.

In Walk Two Moons, although Sal's mother only posthumously appeared in the nover briefly she affected many aspects of the plot such as the action, character development, and them. Sal's mother was the reason behind the road trip which turned out to be a journey in which Sal attains self improvement.