Write a one page double-spaced typed or 250 word personal response that gives your views on “homelessness”. Consider the following:

 Why do you believe people become homeless?

 What responsibility does the family of the homeless have for them?

 What is society’s responsibility to the homeless?

 What is being done for the homeless in your community? (You may need to do some research for this. Think about who will have some information on this or where you can find some information.

Dylan Wallace

• Shoulder-length black hair.
  
• Sixteen years old.
  
• Homeless youth
  
• living on the street for four week
  
• Single mother, two younger brothers.
  
• Kicked out of home to make way for new father.
  
• Bad relationship with his mother.
  
• Good relationship with his younger brothers.
  
• Not very clean due to homelessness.
  
• Best possession is a backpack.
  
• Insecure yet bold, sensitive, cautious and wary.

Jenna

• Homeless youth, fourteen to sixteen years old.
  
• Thin, almost starving look.
  
• Platinum blonde hair, blue eyes.
  
• Newly homeless, been on the street for six days at the beginning of the novel.
  
• Works for Brendan (Vulture)
  
• ran away from home, not kicked out like Dylan
  
• does not wish to return home, unlike Dylan

Glen

• CEO of large technology corporation.
  
• Helps at homeless youth education centre.
  
• Young, persistent, generous.
  
• Caring, wise, optimistic.
  
• Believes in others - especially Dylan.

Minor Characters

Brendan (AKA "Vulture")

• Homeless.
  
• Uses other homeless youth to collect money.
  
• Rude and ruthless, cares only for personal gratification and money.
  
• Has a posse of other homeless youth to enforce his rules.

Dylan’s Mother, Joanne Wallace

• Pregnant with Dylan at the age of sixteen.
  
• Father of Dylan left as soon as he found out.
  
• Has three children, Dylan is oldest, then Jordan, the Micha.
  
• Throws Dylan out of home when new husband, fourth one, is moving in.
  
• Selfish, doesn’t care about her own children.

Dylan’s Brothers, Micha and Jordan

• Live with Joanne (Dylan’s mother)
  
• Don’t know Dylan is homeless
  
• Micha is of a darker skin tone than Jordan
  
• younger than Dylan
  

Dylan’s Grandfather, Edward Wallace

• Diagnosed with lung cancer
  
• Lives in hospital in Murdock
  
• grey hair, tall and big, but now skinny and frail due to cancer
  
• father of Dylan’s father, who left

Twitch (AKA Aaron)

• homeless youth
  
• suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  
• lots of piercings, green hair
  
• tall, thin, very skinny, skeletal almost - malnourished
  
• heavy drug user - marijuana, cocaine
  
• cannot read
  

Amber

• homeless youth
  
• pregnant with child, for government benefits
  
• worked for Brendan before pregnancy
  
• helped Dylan for a week
  
• had sex with Dylan
  
• swears a lot
  
• used to being homeless

Dylan’s Father, Phil Wallace

• lives in Murdock
  
• Dylan’s biological father
  
• abusive and drunk
  
• trashes his father’s home
  
• in between jobs
  
• last worked in Halifax, Nova Scotia
  

Ainsley

• mid-twenties
  
• curly black hair
  
• once a street kid as well
  
• helps at local youth shelters and centres
  
• social workers

Lurch

• bald, large, muscular
  
• works for Vulture
  
• been in prison
  
• smokes

Garbage Man (Paul)

• old homeless man
  
• wears garbage bags all the time

Swear Lady (Gladdy)

• old homeless woman
  
• once a nurse
  
• talks to herself and swears a lot
  
• pushes around cart filled with random stuff

Miriam

• lives in Murdock
  
• cares for Dylan’s grandfather

1. Dylan is a sixteen year old kid who was thrown out of his own home and forced to live on the streets like a homeless person. He was kicked out of his home by his mother, who wished to impress her new boyfriend, and having Dylan there would only ruin her chances.
   
2. Dylan’s usual place to stay is in a plaza in front of two office towers in the downtown of a major city. He sits there and begs for money from people passing by, usually office workers, while also avoiding other homeless people and displaced teens.
   
3. One day, a man named Glen walks up to Dylan, he is one of the young employees who works at the office towers. Glen offerers him a sausage, which Dylan accepts.
   
4. There is another homeless teen around, named Jenna, who works across the street, in front of a church. She is associated with Brendan, who also goes by the name “Vulture.”
   
5. The library provides safety and is sort of a safe haven for Dylan, as this is where he can go if he has no other place to go. He stays there when it gets cold outside, and finds a book regarding the theory of relativity, by Albert Einstein.
   
6. Dylan, homesick, goes back to his high school with Jenna and tries to get his stuff. He also visits younger brothers, Micha and Jordan, at their own schools.
   
7. At Dylan’s usual spot in front of the office towers, he is faced with Vulture’s henchmen, kids who work for Brendan. They threaten him with a switchblade and force him away, effectively taking control of his area, the plaza in front of the office towers.
   
8. Distressed, Dylan goes with Jenna to the church’s hospitality dinner, but Dylan is unhappy and leaves early, spending the night wandering the streets, eventually finding a place to sleep on the street.
   
9. He is woken up roughly by police officer, however Glen finds Dylan and takes him out to a restaurant for breakfast.
   
10. Homesick yet again, Dylan visits his home, where he was kicked out from, and see’s that his mother and brothers are happy with his mother’s new boyfriend. He poses as a cousin and has dinner with him, but it doesn’t end well. Dylan’s mother hands him a letter that she kept from him for a long time. It is addressed from his grandfather, and this brings back some memories, as he used to go to his grandfather’s home when he was younger.
    
11. The letter leads Dylan to arrive at the school for street kids that Glen works at and recommends often. He uses a computer to find out his grandfather’s address, and Glen, being the nice guy he is, offers him a two-way ticket to Murdock, where his grandfather lives.
    
12. Hoping it will bring new life, Dylan travels to Murdock via bus, seeking his grandfather and wishing for reconciliation. However, much to Dylan’s dismay, he sees that his grandfather is suffering from crippling lung cancer, and is practically comatose.
    
13. Unable to bear seeing his grandfather is such pain, Dylan heads to his grandfather’s home, where is grandmother is not found because she had died years ago. His grandfather’s old home is trashed, and in it resides Dylan’s original father, a man he has never seen, heard from, or met. When Dylan tries to clean up his grandfather’s home, he is beaten up and badly hurt by his original father, before rushing home to the city.
    
14. When Dylan returns he finds out that Jenna has now become a prostitute, and proceeds to receive another horrible beating, this time by Vulture’s henchmen, the same boys who threatened him with a switchblade and stole his turf. Dylan’s backpack, his most prized possession, is stolen, and he also has his ribs broken in the fight, as well as a terribly swollen face. In an effort to help him, and as an apology, Jenna gives Dylan some shady painkiller pills.
    
15. Dylan, unfortunately, becomes hooked on the pills, developing an addiction for them, which leads him to seek them out from Vulture, giving in to his lucrative ordeals and falling victim to Brendan himself. However Dylan recognizes his mistakes and tries to fight back, choosing to break free but ending up hunted by Vulture’s henchmen.
    
16. The pills Dylan took began to have their effect, as he now develops a hallucination of Albert Einstein, who talks some sense into him and gives Dylan some new insight about his life and what his next step should be. With this newfound advice, Dylan leaves the library bathroom and heads towards a pay-phone o call Glen about getting a job.

Survival

Being a homeless youth, surviving is a feat in and of itself, when it comes to Jamal and his brother, Salim. Living in the Juhu slums of Mumbai, they face horrors beyond comprehension, much more so than the horrors faced by Dylan in the novel. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as the similarities only grow. Within Slumdog Millionaire, it is shown that there is a man who exploits said homeless youth and uses them for money. This is similar to Theories of Relativity, where Brendan, or "Vulture," is a major player in the social structure and distribution of power in the world of the homeless. However, in the novel, which is more geared towards a younger, more inexperienced audience, the horrors faced by the characters appear to be toned down. In Slumdog Millionaire, this problem is seemingly non-existent, as it shows the true severity of the horrors faced by the many characters within, not abiding by the restrictions of the audience and it's viewers, allowing them to give a pure, raw, unadulterated view into the lives of the homeless youth in the slums of Mumbai.

Abandonment

Dylan, the protagonist of the novel, has been kicked out of his own home by his very own mother, forced to live on the streets, to survive in a harsh world without any prior experience. However, Jamal, the protagonist of the film, has been born into a world of horror and homelessness, an orphan bound for poverty. His entire life has been centred around one factor: homelessness. Although both Dylan and Jamal both face terrible circumstances and situations, they both have different upbringings, and therefore, react differently. Dylan, having never been homeless before, is inexperienced in the ways of the streets, and often requires the assistance of other characters within the novel. Jamal, on the other hand, has grown up in the world of homelessness and poverty, and knows the streets inside out. He knows which people to avoid, which people to follow, and which people to just plain ignore. While Dylan was truly abandoned by his own mother, his own family, Jamal was forced into his abandonment, as he is an orphan. He has never known his father, his mother, his uncles or aunts, or his grandparents.

PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN (WEAK/STRONG)

There were a number of different women portrayed in the novel, from Amber to Jenna to Joanne (Dylan's mother). They all had their different aspects, attributes, and perceptions of the world around them. But what about the world's perception of them, as women? In the film, there are also female roles present, the most notable is Latika, who is a homeless youth and partner to Jamal and Salim. The novel portrayed each woman in a different light, accurately and efficiently. For example, Jenna was a homeless youth, much similar to Latika. The both of them had a constant fear of the horrors homeless women face. In the novel, the main "dons," for a lack of better word, were both on the lookout for young women they could turn into prostitutes. And in both cases, they succeeded, as both Jenna and Latika were turned into prostitutes for the sake of making money. In this example, it is absolutely disgusting the way that men treat women, especially those who aren't as prosperous as other people.