Character Profile: Nathaniel Anthony Ayers

Name: Ayers, Nathaniel Anthony
Date of Birth: January 22nd, 1951
Place of Birth: Cleveland, Ohio
Ethnicity: African-American

Background Information: Nathaniel lived with his family in Cleveland, where eventually his father left to live in Los Angeles, California. He then became focused on music and was considered musically gifted, being able to play many instruments beautifully. During a time where race was becoming a large scale issue, he spent all of his time practicing on his double bass. Getting into music schools and still practicing getter better and better he finally auditioned to the famous Julliard and got in. However on his second year there he had a mental break down, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was then institutionalized after having public outbursts and with the fall of mental hospitals, was put to the streets.

Characteristics: Nathaniel at first was a homeless street musician, with the appearance of any homeless person on the street. Wearing dirty clothes that don’t match, but playing beautiful music on a violin with two strings. He’s a very kind, well mannered person throughout the novel, however he has dramatic mood swings where he will get very anger and even violent towards people. He’s stubborn and ignorant to anybodies ideas but his own. But the point of this book was helping to change him, so he became more and more trustful of others further in the book.