No More Dead Dogs

Rachel Turner is serious and ambitious. She believes she is destined to act professionally because of her commitment to the craft. As she says of the first show she was in back in elementary school, “Even at eight years old, I was the only one who understood—the show must go on” (12), and this mindset sets Rachel up as an opposition to Wallace from the outset of No More Dead Dogs. She is one of the few theater kids who doesn’t like Wallace’s suggestions for the play. She doesn’t want to like them because she believes theater must be serious and meaningful, and her biases against athletes lead her to believe that a football player cannot possibly understand anything about storytelling or acting. As the play improves and the rest of the cast finds the worth in Wallace’s suggestions, Rachel sees similar value in an outsider’s perspective and realizes that even athletes can contribute to theater.

Mr. Fogelman is Wallace’s English teacher and the director of the play Old Shep, My Pal. At the beginning of the book, Mr. Fogelman is described as “the kind of young teacher who tries to be ‘one of the guys,’ but everything he does only shows how out of it he is” (4). Mr. Fogelman is 29 years old and, as a result, feels caught between being an older role model for his students and getting involved at the same level as the kids. Joining the Dead Mangoes allows him to find where these conflicting desires merge. He can both be a part of what the kids are doing while maintaining his professional teacher persona. Like Wallace, he is not only one thing, and Mr. Fogelman ends the book significantly less uptight.

Trudi is Rachel’s best friend and a member of the drama club. Where Rachel represents the self-important stereotype of actors, Trudi is the opposite, symbolizing the fame-obsessed stereotype. Wallace says of Trudi that “If ditziness was snow, this girl would be Alaska” (51), which describes Trudi’s personality and actions. She reads teen magazines and takes their “wisdom” as gospel, and she often doesn’t think before she speaks, which leads to misunderstandings.

Cavanaugh is Wallace’s former best friend and the star player on the football team. Cavanaugh has the “longest, blondest hair at Bedford Middle School” (6), which symbolizes his status on the team, as well as how Wallace feels about him. Cavanaugh measures his self-worth in terms of how others view him. He resents Wallace for scoring the winning touchdown the year before because it took appreciation away from him (a much better player), and without the admiration from his teammates, Cavanaugh lashes out at Wallace to hide his hurt. At the end of the book, Wallace gains recognition for the play, rather than his winning touchdown, which allows Cavanaugh to work through his resentment and start rebuilding his relationship with Wallace.

Dylan is Rachel’s younger brother and the antagonist of No More Dead Dogs. While Wallace focuses on the football team to figure out who keeps attacking the play, Dylan slips under his nose to sabotage the production. Dylan is a fifth grader and the younger sibling of Rachel, both of which seem to clear him as the saboteur. His youth and relationship to Rachel do not stop him from attacking the play in order to get Wallace back on the football team. These factors only serve to make him less of a suspect, which symbolizes how people don’t consider that those closest to them would do something to hurt them. Dylan also represents good intentions gone bad. He wants the football team to win again and believes Wallace is the way to achieve that outcome. Dylan sees only his objective and not how his actions hurt the play, something that is less important to him.

Rick and Feather are two of Wallace’s football teammates. While neither boy has much of a presence individually, together they are the only people who stand by Wallace through his detention and shifting alliance toward the drama club. Rick and Feather symbolize true friendship. While the rest of the football team turns its back on Wallace because he isn’t on the field, Rick and Feather give Wallace the benefit of the doubt.

Taken together, Wallace’s mom and dad are the catalyst for his unwillingness to lie. Wallace’s dad told stories throughout Wallace’s childhood, and Wallace later learned that those stories were lies, much like the lies his dad told his mom. Wallace didn’t want to be like his dad because he didn’t want to hurt his mom in the same way, and so he vowed to only ever tell the truth in an effort to erase his dad’s influence and protect his mom.