| Kool-Aid Wino
Paper by John Cychosz After reading "The Kool-Aid Wino," I've come to the conclusion that the young boy who makes the Kool-Aid is a negative character. I found several reasons to support my opinion in the story. Among these are a lack of personal hygiene, a disregard for family and obligations around the home, and an apparent sense of disrespect towards his friends. The first instance I found to support my opinion on the "wino's" negativity, comes when his friend arrives at his house. The first words out of the "wino's" mouth are, "Did you bring the nickel you promised?" He doesn't say "Hi," or "How's it going?" He's only concerned about the nickel. The boy then jumps out of bed, and we then learn that he doesn't change his clothes before bed. Many people would say this isn't a negative quality, because the boy's family lives in extreme poverty and can probably only afford one set of clothes for the boy. I disagree, because even if they could only afford one set of clothes, he could at least take them off before bed and fold them, at least make some effort towards neatness and order. After getting out of bed, the boy doesn't even go wash up or comb his hair. He walks straight into the kitchen. In the kitchen, his many younger siblings are sitting around with messy diapers. The "wino" just steps around them, makes no effort to change them, or even call his mom to let her know they need changing. He makes himself some toast with syrup and walks out the door before finishing on the way to the store. At the store, the "wino" uses the nickel his friend brought to purchase some Kool-Aid. For most people buying a pack of Kool-Aid wouldn't be negative, except that the boy's family is so poor. All of the boy's family members that are old enough work in the fields picking beans at 2 1/2 cents a pound. The boy couldn't work because of his rupture, but the nickel he was using to buy Kool-Aid was the equivalent of 2 pounds of bean picking. Giving that nickel to his family would have saved some amount of work for them. Back home the boy begins the Kool-Aid making ritual. The way he goes about the process, draws of images of some exotic religious ritual, some say this is a way the boy puts a meaning, or some sort of order, to his sad reality. I believe he is just making a total escape from the world, similar to a friend taking drugs to get high. While making the Kool-Aid the boy's mom comes around the corner and yells at him about making sure the dishes were done. The boy should have taken care of this before even going to get the Kool-Aid, but instead he decided to put off his duty to the family just so he can have Kool- Aid for the day. After filling the gallon jug with water and mixing the Kool-aid and water together, the boy carries the gallon jug to the chicken house. A gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds, so it seems that even though his rupture prevented the boy from working in the fields, he had plenty of strength to carry his Kool-Aid around. On the inside of the chicken house there is a mattress the boy sits on while drinking his Kool-Aid and decayed comic books on the ground that he probably reads over and over again while drinking. This shows the boy's lack of regard for his surroundings. The last comment of the "wino's" friend is that "he created his own Kool-Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it." This seems to show that the boy used Kool-aid as a way to get out of life, rather then trying to make something with what he does have. So it would
seem that despite the boy's rupture and his family's
poverty, which I agree are very unfortunate things in his
life, he has no sense of obligation to help his family
out, or even to help himself. He just lives his life for
the Kool-Aid, getting it any way he can. These traits
clearly display the "Kool-Aid wino" as a
negative character. Back
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