Mark's Friends

Mark's friends, while not main characters, are important in their supporting roles. Also, they all have rather interesting personalities.

Daniel was Mark's best friend when he was a child. Daniel loves animals and nature far more than humans. He wishes for "people to be as selfless as they should be, humbled by the million supporting links that kept them alive, as generous with others as nature was with them" (54). Although he hasn't truly been friends with Mark since a falling-out they had in high school, he supports Karin and helps to keep her strong as she tries to nurse Mark back to health.

Tommy Rupp and Duane Cain are Mark's current "buddies". They were a part a group in high school "that would take him in because he passed the simple audition of failing to fit in anywhere else-the group of losers that freed him" (25). Both of these men are rather eccentric in nature such as the way Duane has "tattoos...of red muscles stung onto his hairless chest, as detailed and realistic as an anatomy text" (27). They also have a kind of "easy come, easy go" attitude where they easily brush off the concerns and anger of others. When they visit Mark in the hospital, they are always upbeat and act as though they are on a normal visit to hang out with their friend, just like before the accident. Mark always seems to make outstanding improvements whenever they come around, such as a boost in his mechanical movements by playing catch with them shortly after coming out of his coma.

Bonnie Travis is a close female friend of Mark's. Their relationship is rather unclear as in the past Mark had told Karin that "even if she was [his woman], she wouldn't realize it" (38). Bonnie is a generally perky and happy girl, who talks almost incessantly about anything and everything. She also does a lot to aid in Mark's recovery simply by talking to him and trying to get him to fill in parts of nursery rhymes and other little sayings, to spark his memory and help him reestablish connections to things he once knew. However, she also has an anxious and worried side that she shows to Karin. She "[tries her] hardest to be up"(41) in Mark's presence, but once she leaves his hospital room, she sometimes breaks down.

Each and every one of these characters is vital to the way that both Mark and his sister, as well as their relationship to each other, develop through the story. Their actions and interactions have profound affects on both of the main characters.

Rhetoric Study

"She didn't believe Mark had any syndrome. His mind was just sorting out the chaos of the injury. Every day left him more like his old self. A little patience, and the cloud would lift. He'd already come back from the dead; he would come back from this smaller loss. She was who she was; he'd have to see that, as he got clearer. She took the setback the way the therapists told her to, one baby step in front of the other. She worked on Mark, not pushing anything. She walked him down to the cafeteria. She answered his strange questions. She brought him copies of his two favorite truck-modding magazines. She encouraged and reinforced his memories, vaguely alluding to family history. But she had to pretend not to know too much about him. She tried once or twice; any claim of intimacy led immediately to trouble" (61).

Within this passage, Powers uses several rhetoric strategies to achieve a single, over-all effect.

The string of short sentences that starts off the paragraph serves to show Karin's state of denial towards Mark's condition. Because they are brief and to the point, they help to show how her thoughts are rushed and clumped together, just like a person who is frantically trying to deny something they don't want to believe.

Just following this are two metaphorical statements about how "the clouds will lift" and the way Mark had "already come back from the dead". These add to the impression of Karin's denial by reinforcing her hopes that Mark is and will be perfectly fine, despite what the doctors had told her about his mental condition.

Repetition is also included quite a bit in this section showing all of the things that she does for him and how she is trying everything to help him improve. Again, the repetition drives home the idea that Karin is determined to make Mark get better and disprove the doctor's statements.

This entire passage is used to display Karin's determination for helping her brother, while also showing the futility of her efforts and how her relationship with him remains unchanging, leading "immediately to trouble" when she makes an attempt.

Character Study

The two main characters in Richard Powers' The Echo Maker are the Schluter siblings, Karin and Mark.

Karin is ambitious and longs to escape the life she had in her small hometown. "She concentrated on saving herself, finishing her sociology degree, the first ever in a family that looke on college as a form of witchcraft" (25). However, when her brother is injured in a car accident, she reveals her true nature as someone who greatly cares for her family. She willingly gives up her current life and returns to that town in order to take care of him and help him recover his health. She is very strong on the outside and tells herself that "She could rise to this" (14) as she struggles to "get him on his feet, listen to him, help him find what he needed to be" (26). Despite this, she also has a weak side that needs someone who can support her. She becomes reaquainted with old friends who are still living in that town and "for her, seeing him meant the difference between bobbing and going under" (53).

Mark, on the other hand, seems to be unmotivated to truly do anything besides "hang with his friends. Go hear bands...Check for ground effects on eBay. Do vids. Watch TV. Run with the dog" and build up stats for a thief character he has online (65). He also cared a lot for his family, and although they live in different towns, he continues to keep in close contact with his sister. After his car accident he was in a coma due to closed-head trauma, and when he awakes, he seems to be slightly changed. He is infantile and has to be constantly taken care of in order to be restored to his former self. When he is finally back mentally to his previous level of intelligence, he suddenly believes that the woman taking care of him is not actually his sister and tells her that "there's something wrong with [her] head" (59). He thinks that there is a conspiracy preventing his "real" sister from coming to him and trained a copy to take her place. He becomes obsessed with this idea and is suspicious of everyone he ever knew.

Point of View

Most of the first section of the book is told from Karin's point of view. However, the story occasionally shifts to Mark's point of view. While Mark is in the process of recovering after his coma, the glimpses into his mind are very interesting.

Mark's thoughts are sometimes confusing to read and seem to be almost riddles that contain some hidden meaning for the reader to decipher. These passages are Mark's memories of the accident he was in as well as his thoughts as he struggles for consciousness and coherency. The events surrounding the car accident are a mystery to everyone, and even Mark's memories are described using such abstract images as " great oxbows, age bends, lazy delayed S, switch current to still as long as possible the one long drop it already finishes...Face forcing up into soundless scream. White column, lit in a river of light. Then pure terror, pealing into air, flipping and falling, anything but hit target" (10).

These descriptions are so jagged and give off the feeling of having been strung together that they do more to add to the ever growing mystery rather than clarify any part of it. By using such short and broken up sentences, the author is able to accurately depict to the reader the incompleteness of Mark's thoughts due to his head injury and make the reader wonder if even Mark really knows what happened to him. Slowly, the sections in Mark's point of view start to use more complete thoughts within the sentences which shows his path towards recover. Despite this, the mystery surrounding the accident continues as, with the recovery of his consciousness, Mark realizes that there is "something else he is supposed to remember. Something else to save someone. Desperate message" (34), but he can't quite grasp it. Almost as if his memories are like a dream that he can still feel below the surface of his thoughts, but which he can't quite remember.

Initial Reaction

The Echo Maker starts off with a vivid description about migratory cranes. Richard Powers goes into great detail in his images of the way countless numbers of cranes gather together to rest by the river at night before continuing their migration for the coming spring. His images are haunting and beautiful such as when he describes "the blood-red head bows and the wings sweep together, a cloaked priest giving benediction" (3).

"As darkness falls for real, it's a beginner's world again, the same evening as that day sixty million years ago when this migration began" (3-4). This and many of the other images are used to set the eerie and solemn tone that continues through the first several pages. They catch the reader's attention and hook them into the story.

Also, just following the description of the birds is a short section describing a car accident. This caught me by surprise because it was so sudden and it broke into the tranquility that had been established in the part about the cranes before returning to that sense of calm once again. That scene is short and abrupt and the diction is full of words such as "squeal", "crunch", and "scream" that greatly stand out in contrast to the smooth and flowing words used to talk about the cranes. But again, this sudden urgency and action is ended as quickly as it was started when the author returns to the former mood by stating that "by morning, that sound had never happened" (4).

All together, the opening scene creates a sense of mystery that evokes curiosity from the reader and draws them in, making them want to read more.