Sky Full of Elephants

Sidney is the second central character. She’s Charlie and Elizabeth’s daughter, and her mother named her after Charlie. Initially, Sidney doesn’t feel a connection to Charlie, nor does she want one. Unaware of the false rape accusation, Sidney believes Charlie chose to leave her. The sense of abandonment makes Charlie inimical. Race also turns Charlie into her ostensible antagonist. After the event, Sidney bunkers down in her luxurious Wisconsin home. She identifies as white and views Black people as a menacing “they.” Sidney tells Charlie, “I’m sure they probably destroyed most of it by now.” Charlie replies, “They?” Sidney explains, “The world got left to the heathens. That’s why everything is going to hell outside these walls” (67). Stubborn and willful, Sidney compels her father to take her to Orange Beach so she can be with Agnes and the remaining white people.

Sidney frequently presents herself as staunchly white. When Nona calls her a “sister,” she denounces the label. After Charlie shares what happens with Elizabeth, Sidney accuses him of foisting his trauma onto her. Yet Sidney is a vulnerable character. She was always aware that her curly hair and features made her different. She also remembers moments when people linked her to Blackness: The Black janitor at her first job used “us” when referring to her and him, and the woman at her church, under the impression that she was one of the “less fortunate” people, gives her a package. Paralleling Charlie’s character arc, Mobile teaches Sidney to embrace her Blackness. One sign of her acceptance is the dreamlike sequence where she sees the enslaved Black woman (presumably, an ancestor) instead of her mother. Another pivotal moment is when Sidney rejects Agnes’s walker ideology in Orange Beach. Since Sidney grows out of her preoccupation with identifying as solely white, the area no longer symbolizes belonging.

Sidney’s resolution is less straightforward and euphoric than Charlie’s. Sidney realizes her solution while driving out West. She maintains her Blackness, but she doesn’t deny her whiteness. The narrator says, “Her mother had tried to give her a better life. Her father had tried to give her a wider perspective. But that enemy and its conflict remained.” The enemy is abstract, and Sidney can’t defeat it, but she has the power to “wrap its ragged edges with her softness” (468). Sidney can cope with the general turmoil in the world without putting herself in a corner or suppressing parts of her mixed identity.

Vivian and Hosea are the king and queen of Mobile, Alabama. Before assuming their royal roles, Vivian was a singer and dedicated activist. Hosea played the trumpet and planned to study engineering in college. Once Hosea married Vivian, his life revolved around her. She briefly moved their family to Haiti, which taught them how to build a society like Mobile. Their kingdom comes across as a utopia, but Vivian counters such a reading. She refers to Mobile as a “movement.” The narrator says, “Hers was not a philosophy of living in perfect harmony but living together, and harmony could come and go to the degree togetherness required” (174). Vivian is a practical, natural leader. Hosea defers to her. She ordered him to turn on the machine, which prompted the event.

Though Vivian and Hosea come across as benevolent royalty with no intention of exploiting or coercing their subjects, their characters hold some potentially problematic beliefs. Vivian doesn’t feel remorse about causing the event, and neither does Hosea, though many of the characters come to understand that the event was necessary. Hosea also discusses women in a way that idolizes them, telling Herald, “[Y]ou need to go sit under a woman—feminine energy in whatever form you can find it. The feminine is sacred because the feminine is still connected to the universe” (412). Though some readers might argue that this quote puts women on a pedestal, it may also reflect a spiritual reverence, as Charlie does find greater peace with Seraphin, a conjure woman.

Nona is Vivian and Hosea’s daughter, and the story regularly refers to her as a “princess.” Nona is a static character. Her change has already happened. Nona tells Sidney, “[I] [u]sed to dream about my prom dress and pulling up to my high school in an all-white G-Wagon. But all that changed. I sort of realized that it was all just stuff people told me I should like” (256). The trip to Haiti taught her to set aside superficial concerns and focus on meaningful pursuits like art and literature.

What Nona has accomplished, Sidney hopes to achieve: The creation of a stable, autonomous identity. The narrator explains, “Within the cluster of Nona’s life, Sidney acknowledged the hollowness of her own” (235). Though Sidney is hostile, Nona remains patient, and Sidney eventually accepts Nona as a mentor. In Mobile, Nona’s character arguably has the biggest impact on Sidney.

Elizabeth’s brief relationship with Charlie produces the major elements of the story. It lands Charlie in jail and results in her daughter, Sidney. Elizabeth’s intangible presence stays with the two main characters. Charlie can’t forget Elizabeth because her actions altered the course of his life. Even after she learns about the false rape accusation, Sidney doesn’t want to erase her mother. She thinks, “Had not her mother loved her unconditionally? Had not her family always been kind and gentle?” (449).

Yet the portrayal of Elizabeth is mostly negative. She told an egregious lie. She “sacrificed” Charlie to preserve the racist status or “that line of division” (110-11). Sidney also adopts this point of view, lambasting her mother for expressing remorse but taking no action. Hypothetically, the truth wouldn’t matter. Even if Elizabeth told the truth, the men could silence her and maintain that the consensual sex was rape. Neither Sidney nor Charlie recognize the gender dynamics of Elizabeth’s fraught situation.

Agnes is Thomas’s wife and Sidney’s sole remaining white family member. Agnes provides Sidney with a goal. She’s the reason why Sidney wants to go to Mobile, Alabama. To get there, she relies on Charlie. Thus, Agnes, however inadvertently, brings Charlie and Sidney together.

Though Agnes isn’t a main character, she’s rather layered. When Sidney confronts her at Orange Beach, Agnes comes across as zealously white. Once she acknowledges her Black grandmother, her association with race becomes less straightforward. Agnes becomes a representative of Fela’s belief that whiteness isn’t a skin color but an idea: Agnes embraces the idea. While she remains a cult-like walker, she’s not without compassion or awareness. She admits that Thomas was a bad person, and she apologizes to Charlie. Crying, she tells Charlie, “I wish I had the courage to tell you how sorry I am” (435). Agne’s characterization isn’t inhumane or unfeeling.

Tau, Herald, and Fela are Vivian and Hosea’s sons and Nona’s brothers. While Nona gets to be a princess, no one in the story suggests the sons are princesses, making the boys appear less majestic. The story limits the boys’ roles. Fela serves as Sidney’s romantic interest. He’s also Sidney’s sidekick, driving her to Orange Beach. Herald’s interest in electricity and math makes him a younger version of Charlie. Tau is the “grumpy” but caring older brother. Though he antagonizes Sidney, he’s an ally, driving Charlie and the other characters to Orange Beach to find her.