Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

In many ways, Earl is Greg’s foil. He is black, and Greg is white. He is short and thin, Greg is average height and chubby. He lives in a broken home, and Greg does not. He encounters tragedies daily, while losing Rachel is Greg’s first negative experience. He is emotionally intuitive, and Greg is oblivious to his own feelings. He takes remedial classes and has no plans to go to college, Greg takes advanced classes and hopes to attend Carnegie Mellon. He is realistic, while Greg prefers to live in his imagination. Earl can see that their films make Rachel happy, and Greg cannot.

Earl is a survivor of his circumstances and smart enough to know he needs to get out of them to continue to survive. According to Greg, Earl spendssome of his middle school years doing drugs, but he returns to school and sobers up, yet “he remained a very solitary person” (131). To be able to do that at such a young age implies that Earl’s strength knows no limits. His younger brothers have already succumbed to gangs and drugs, and his mother is a devoted alcoholic. Yet Earl makes movies with his friend and stays in school and plans to work at a Wendy’s when he graduates, so he can save up enough money to move out and change his life.

Earl consistently challenges Greg to break out of his routine and see the world in a new way. He has little patience for Greg’s protectiveness of their films, or of Greg’s crippling need to be liked. His frustrations peak the afternoon Greg wants to fight him when Rachel only has days left to live. Earl strongly advises Greg to go to college and not define his life based on one tragic experience. 

Rachel has big teeth and frizzy hair and snorts loudly when she laughs, so she is an unlikely candidate for friendship of any kind with Greg since he focuses primarily on a girl’s hotness. But they make each other laugh, and Rachel’s patience with Greg is what eventually allows him to connect with her: “In her quiet way, Rachel was actually being sort of brilliant…[s]he orchestrated our conversations so that I did the talking and she did the listening. Sure enough, this made me like spending time with her” (89-90). When Greg tells Rachel that he doesn’t want to show anyone his films, she respects his privacy. When he shows up accidentally stoned and with an uninvited friend, she’s amused. Rachel gives Greg a wide berth, and he needs it as he traverses this new territory of friendship.

Rachel’s mother describes her as never having been a fighter. Since her cancer rapidly advances, there is not much fighting Rachel can do. It is her acceptance of her lot in life that pushes against Greg’s need to control his. Her physical weakness forces Greg to listen to her, even if he doesn’t understand her. When it becomes too painful for her to laugh, she asks Greg not to put on a show for her. When she becomes gravely ill, she confesses to Greg that she knows she is dying. And when she tells Greg she likes the film he made for her, he believes her. It is Rachel’s steady pace and trust in him that offer Greg the courage to dive deeper into a new and confusing emotional landscape.

Greg’s mom, Marla, is overly involved in Greg’s social life, scheduling playdates for him well into his teen years.She pushes Greg to befriend Rachel because she knows Greg is funny, has a good heart, can cheer her up, and is up to the task. She possesses a clear and inarguable moral compass. When she is certain “something is the Right Thing to Do, that thing gets done. No ifs, ands, or buts” (49). To convince others to move in the right direction, she will not stop talking until the other person concedes. Greg uses this tactic against her when he confronts her about having his film shown at the school pep rally, and the tactic proves just as useful in someone else’s hands because Marla agrees with Greg that she went too far. She is openly emotional in front of her son, and that emotionality provides Greg an opportunity to be open, too,as they witness one of Rachel’s final days. 

Greg’s dad, Victor, is “a professor of classics at Carnegie Mellon University. No human being is weirder than Victor Quincy Gaines, PhD” (48). Victor writes books, teaches, and in his ample spare time, he buys odd specialty foods, talks at length to their cat, and grosses out his daughters at the dinner table. He introduces Greg and Earl to their first obscure film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, which inspires the two of them to become filmmakers. He provides them with camera and editing equipment and encourages Earl’s interest in weird foods by inviting him to tag along on his shopping adventures. He makes a feeble attempt to encourage Greg to apply to colleges but leaves most of the strong-arm parenting style up to his wife, Marla.

Mr. McCarthy allows Greg and Earl to eat lunch in his office. He is a bit of an oddity at Benson High in that he is one of the only teachers that “seems somehow immune to the life-crushing qualities of high school” (133). You can never find him crying during the day, as many teachers do, and he maintains an infectious excitement about facts and research. His ability to simply be himself makes Greg feel at ease around him, providing Greg an advocate once his schoolwork suffers during Rachel’s worst days.

Denise is Rachel’s mom. She first confides in Greg’s mom about Rachel’s diagnosis. The two women orchestrate a plan for Greg and Rachel to become friends. They both agree that Greg’s humor is precisely what Rachel needs, and assign him the task of cheering her up. Denise is an aggressive woman, and fiercely protective of her daughter. When Greg and Earl try making a documentary about Rachel and interview Denise, she reveals her worry about being a good mother. With her aging parents and absent husband, Denise is left to handle a dying daughter on her own.

Greg has had a crush on Madison since grade school. At the time, to avoid anyone realizing how much he liked her, Greg insults Madison until he makes her cry: “[T]he teacher gave me the elementary school equivalent of a restraining order. I quietly accepted it and didn’t speak to Madison again for like five years. To this day, it remains an unsolved mystery: The Week Greg Was Filled with Unexplained Hate for Madison” (23). Madison supports Rachel after her diagnosis and is impressed with Greg’s dedication to his friendship with her, which causes Greg to either freeze or speak in incoherent sentences. When she discovers how much Rachel enjoys their films, Madison suggests that Greg and Earl make a film for Rachel, and that becomes the catalyst that ultimately leads to Greg’s emotional downfall.

Gretchen is Greg’s “older younger sister” (50), whom their father easily repulseswith his penchant for odd dinnertime behavior, and whose teenage hormones cause her to direct all her anger at their mother. Grace is Greg’s “younger younger sister,” whom Gretchen and Greg are fairly certain “was an accident” (50). At six years old, Grace is already mimicking her father’s quirkiest personality traits, namely interacting with their cat as if he were “a human being” (50). Grace also occasionally acts as an extra in Greg and Earl’s films.

Cat Stevens is the Gaines family cat. He enjoys “long-winded philosophical meditations” (51) and eating questionable meats with Greg’s dad, attacking Greg’s belly when it jiggles, and having his belly played like a drum. He does not make a particularly malleable actor on the set of Greg and Earl’s films, though they repeatedly cast him in roles due to their lack of willing participants.

Earl’s younger half-brothers instill in Greg both a deep love of video games and an insatiable fear of being unexpectedly whooped. Greg has “learned over the years that basically anything can get anyone in the Jackson house enraged” (161), so Greg becomes adept at hiding and running when a fight breaks out.