Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

One of the ways in which Sheinkin helps flesh out his characters is to merely show some of their more telling actions. For example, as everyone is making last-minute preparations for setting off the bomb at the Trinity test site, he describes how Oppenheimer just couldn't help himself:

Several times Oppenheimer stuck his head into the room to check on the progress, like an anxious husband whose wife was in labor. Bacher finally asked him to stay away—he was making everyone even more nervous. (Trinity.(30).26)

Elsewhere, Oppenheimer is described as a total micro-manager, in that he was involved with just about every aspect of the goings-on at Los Alamos. When Sheinkin writes that he kept popping his head into the room, it shows how nervous Oppie was, but also that he hated not being able to be more hands-on and involved. Obviously he would have been much happier to be in the thick of things, not relying on other people to do all the work.

Direct Characterization

The method that Sheinkin uses most often to characterize his subjects is a direct one. Why beat around the bush when you can just tell the reader what the person is like?

When World War II began, Gold was a twenty-eight-year-old chemist, living with his parents and younger brother in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood. He stood five foot six, with thick black hair and a soft, round face. Friends described him as shy, smart, and always ready to help anyone who asked. He was the kind of guy who seemed to blend in with the background, who could come and go from a room without being noticed. (Tradecraft.(4).6)

Boom: Gold is average looking, if a bit on the small side, shy, smart, and pretty nice. That was easy.

Physical Appearances

Sometimes, a character's physicality lends itself to their personality. For example, described as "a big man with a big personality," Groves is quite literally, um, big:

Three months later, a six foot, two-hundred-fifty-pound army colonel named Leslie Groves was walking down the hallway of a congressional office building on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C. (On the Cliff.(8).11)

Perhaps it was his size that helped Groves become the no-nonsense bully that people came to recognize. Either way, Sheinkin probably wouldn't have included so many references to his size if he didn't feel it was pertinent to his character.