The Lesser Blessed

The Lesser Blessed Analysis

By looking at the title, it is clear what the main question of the novel could be. Since the first thematic moment of the novel comes in the question of jealousy, since Johnny is with the girl Larry loves, we can assume that Larry is the "lesser blessed." To be lesser blessed would be to be not blessed as much as another (Johnny), but the title implies a difficult argument—that, although Larry's life is harder than Johnny's, his life is still a blessing.

That controversial opinion actually never appears in the novel in any serious way, but the title is loud and clear. Larry is not cursed, he is "less blessed" than his friend. And because of grammar rules, if there were three or more in the comparison, it would have to be "least" blessed, so "lesser" blessed implies a dual comparison. This seems to imply that Larry feels worst about his fate when he compares it to any other person's fate.

In a way, the reader is misled about the severity of the situation in the beginning of the book, because all that comparison stuff gets discussed without the reader knowing the true nature of Larry's struggle. Then, when we learn how truly horrifying and severe his suffering has been, the reader learns whether they are judgmental.

That happens because Van Camp designed the plot to trick people into assuming that they know enough about Larry to have an opinion about his jealousy. The plot invites us to criticize a person without knowing them, and then when we learn more about the person, we learn the true meaning of the book—that we should treat each other with charity, because we never know enough about people to judge them correctly.

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