Dylan

The hero-narrator, Dylan is an eighth grader. He's a Boy Scout, and has just been elected Senior Troop Leader. Dylan is tall and strong, but is next to blind without his glasses. As the boys prepare to go on a hike to the lava flow, Dylan knows that he must prove his leadership qualities, no matter what the odds. Dylan represents the typical adolescent boy and is the reader's way into the story, since he personifies many of what we may presume are the young adult reader's traits. In a sense we might think of Dylan as a tragic hero. Since he is tall, strong and smart, but has one flaw, namely his faulty eyesight. It is this defect which makes him seem more human to us, the readers, because he mirrors our own lack of perfection. Dylan is hard-wired to emulate the squeaky clean super masculine role...