Not Out of the Blue -- "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville

Cover of Am I Blue by Bruce Coville

I recently read the short story "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville. While reading, I recognized that a big part of the story was how the protagonist, Vincent, started to develop and evolve. In the beginning of the story, Vincent was lonely and different, and I think in a way this made Vincent feel ashamed about the way he was. Towards the end of the story, Vincent grew into a whole other person. I think in a large way, Vincent developed over his internal conflict of doubting himself. In the exposition, Vincent shows that he is vulnerable to Butch Carrigan and the other bullies when he is pushed face-first into the puddle. In that excerpt, Vincent doesn't stick up for himself. I think this is because he's full of doubt and maybe he's not okay himself with who he really is. When Vincent pushes himself away from the doubt, you can see he's seeing his sexuality and bullying and just the world in general in a new light. 

I think the climax is when Vincent states, "It was like seeing the world through new eyes." He is referring to his "gaydar," or vision that makes everybody who is to some degree homosexual turn blue (or at least some light shade or tint of blue.) But as he sees all of those others that are blue, I realized that Vincent starts to become more okay with being homosexual or at least somewhat. I think this may because he no longer feels alone. When he says that it was like seeing the world through new eyes, I don't think he was necessarily only talking about the blue. I also think Vincent's perspectives had changed and he saw the world in a different way. I also think Vincent reached a change when he gave everyone the vision for 24 hours. My first reaction was to question his motives of doing this. I realized after some speculation, that Vincent didn't want to be different anymore; he wanted it to be acceptable to be gay.

In the resolution of the story, I really noticed the change from Vincent's beginning character and Vincent's character at the end. I feel as though at the beginning, Vincent couldn't and wouldn't stick up for himself because he really felt that the way he was was wrong. I realized that Vincent had changed when, in the end, he wrote: "If I caused you any trouble with Blueday, I'm sorry. But not much. Because things are never going to be the same now that it happened." I think this is a valid example of Vincent sticking up and being able to defend his actions, simply something he wasn't capable of carrying out in the exposition of the story. I really think this shows a vivid character change from beginning to end in this short story.

Once I finished the story, I began thinking about how this connected to the world. I think a lot of high schoolers and middle schoolers can find themselves in situations like these at any given school or time or place, and I think the reason Vincent was given the blue vision was so that he would feel less lonely and know that there were others in the same situation as him. I realized there are a lot of ways that kids who are bullied can be helped to feel less lonely, even if one of the ways isn't blue vision.