Buckeye

Cal is one of the novel’s protagonists. He is married to Becky and is Skip and Tom’s father. He initially thinks that he is defined by the fact that he was born with one leg shorter than the other and deems himself “different.” That feeling only increases when war breaks out and he is deemed unfit for service. Cal struggles to find his place in the world after graduating high school and can see how easily other young men his age slip into the role of “soldier,” leading to the identity crisis that will define his character arc over the course of the novel. As the war continues, he realizes that this historic event will come to define all the men in his generation, and at this point, he feels even more socially unacceptable and different from his peers.

Cal continues to struggle with difference when he marries Becky, developing the theme of Individualism Versus Conformity in Small Communities. Because her spiritualism garners so much attention in town and much of it is critical, he feels doubly stigmatized. He has become not just one of the few male civilians during wartime but also the husband of the town’s notorious medium.