55 pages • 1 hour read
Jess LoureyUnspeakable Things
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Cassie McDowell
Content Warning: This novel refers to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as child neglect, murder, violence, racism, and anti-gay bias.
Cass is the protagonist of the text. Based on the author’s background and professed fictionalization of her own childhood, we may infer that they have some similarities, or at least enough points of identification that Lourey found Cass to be a suitable stand-in for her childhood self. Like many heroines of young adult detective fiction, Cass is quirky and clever, and demonstrates admirable determination. She struggles with the fact that her sister is becoming more of a teenager and less of a child; Cass misses her playmate but is often embarrassed to admit that she mourns this aspect of their relationship. She publicly denounces demonstrations of youthful behavior but is pleased to play with dolls when given the chance. She is a character caught in the crossfire of her own transformation as a child on the cusp of young adulthood and as a girl amid abuse, assault, and finally murder.
Cass develops crushes quickly and allows her imagination to spiral out of control after ascribing too much value to a boy’s simple act of kindness. She adores her sister and her mom. For most of the novel, she also adores her aunt Jin. Cass often acts her age and can be quite self-centered, but recognizing her mom’s unhappiness allows her to take Aunt Jin off of the pedestal that Cass created for her. Though this is a source of tremendous sadness for her because her aunt previously was a source of love and support, it also demonstrates significant growth; she is able to put her personal feelings for Aunt Jin aside and actually notice how Jin’s actions impact her mom. However, Cass is also an unreliable narrator. While adult Cass frames the narrative and demonstrates that she is writing from the distant future, child Cass is often distracted and fails to prioritize or hear essential bits of information because she is distracted.
Cass acts out quite a bit; for instance, she commits unnecessary petty theft just because she is bored. She also believes in talismans and protective shields, perhaps as a way of attempting to gain some agency in circumstances that exist well beyond her control.
Sephie McDowell
Much of Sephie’s character is overlooked because of Cass’s unreliable narration. Sephie is, most of the time, a loving sister who offers protection to her younger sister. It is implied that Sephie is less intellectual than Cass and that she is more susceptible to her dad’s charms when he is trying to win over the family; she is hungrier for praise and affection than Cass is, and she and her mom are more likely to please him. Sephie dislikes school and fears her dad’s angry reaction to her failing chemistry. Her parents value education and expect her to go to college, and she worries that she will disappoint them by wanting to go to beauty school instead. Sephie fears her parents’ wrath, but this does not stop her from being daring; knowing what the ramifications would be, she sneaks out and brings boys into the house when her parents are gone.
Sephie is beautiful and in the throes of puberty. Her changing body attracts unwanted attention from boys and men, including her own father. She sometimes finds validation in this attention and pursues sexual relationships. It is implied that she has suffered considerable sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Sephie is a survivor who, due to her age, cannot yet be untangled from the circumstances that she has been raised to think are correct. Her male classmates look down on her for being sexually active, but they are all eager to be sexually active with her. While Cass is more horrified by her parents’ actions at their orgies, Sephie views the parties as opportunities for her own sexual experimentation. Cass fears that Sephie’s experiments with older men are actually hurting her, but Sephie tries to reassure her little sister that she wants to do this.
As the older child, Sephie is naturally more protective and intuitive. She has a stronger grasp of the family dynamics than Cass does; Cass, for all her self-professed claims of observational powers, willfully ignores a lot of evidence that people she respects are not as wonderful as she would like them to be. Sephie has a slightly different allegiance with her mom than Cass does; Sephie has more years of observational experience and knows that her dad’s philandering sphere extended to her mom’s own sister. Rather than putting Jin on a pedestal like Cass does, Sephie treats her carefully, knowing that Jin’s presence is considerably stressful for her mom.
Cass’s Mom
Cass’s mother is smart but defeated; she demonstrates some agency but is also something of a doormat. She is unable to leave her abusive marriage because of financial reasons. She has internalized that she pursued her husband’s “bad boy” ways and approves of his eccentric lifestyle. The man he has become is very different from the boy she fell in love with. While she is a frustrating character for staying with a husband who subjects her daughters to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, her financial position as a woman in the 1980s rural America is relevant.
Though Cass’s mom has a steady job and makes more than her dad with his occasional sculpture income, as a single mother she would have to raise two children on a teacher’s salary. She has convinced herself that she is okay with her husband’s infidelity because it is part of their swinging lifestyle. However, it is clear that her dad’s infidelities extend past their parties, and he makes no effort to hide his affairs with her friends and even her sister. Cass begs her mom for a divorce, but her mom is too beaten down to seek the freedom that she deserves. This deeply troubling view of the necessary state of resignation certainly reflects the institutionalized second-class status of American women, as opposed to men, in the 1980s. Even though her mom is astute enough to recognize that her circumstances are far from what she would wish for her daughters to marry into, she also recognizes that leaving her abusive husband would take more resources than what she can currently access.
Cass’s Dad
Cass’s father is an abuser who believes that he is breaking cycles of abuse because he is not as physically abusive to his daughters as his stepfather was to him. He does not consider his abuse to be in the same category as this physical abuse, and he believes himself to be above all reproach. With Sergeant Bauer as his accomplice, he grows drugs in his basement and sells them to his friends. He enjoys playing the victim and emphasizing how damaging his experiences of war were, but also constantly reduces and minimizes his wife and daughters through repeated demonstrations of his lack of empathy and genuine contempt. Charismatic when he wants to be, he has amassed a curious cultlike following due to his artistic abilities and aptitude for hosting parties.
His arc does not quite fit the disjointed ending of the novel. The potential sense of agency of Cass is destabilized by the fact that her dad saves her life. Until the very end of the text, Cass dreams of escaping from him. Indeed, what makes her dad particularly dangerous is that he is not terrible all of the time. His wife and daughters crave the moments of peace, love, and silliness that make their lives bearable, and these small moments give particular hope to her mom and Sephie. He dangles affection and kindness, making them perform and contort themselves in order to try to please him. He is dangerously clever and has figured out how to manipulate systems and strategies to suit him.
