A Great Day (Characters)

Characters

Fred

Fred is Ken's friend and accompanies him on their fishing trip. He is a small, slightly built man, with short legs. He seems to lack self-esteem and refers to himself disparagingly as a "joker." He probably feels that he is a failure in life, and he envies those he perceives to be more successful and attractive than he is. He dresses shabbily, and his old clothes, which he has purchased secondhand, do not fit him properly. Fred is neither strong nor physically fit. When he first rows out from the shore, progress is very slow, and he does not keep the dinghy on course. On the reef, a few minutes' work pulling up mussels leaves him badly out of breath.

A working-class man, Fred lost his job and has been unemployed for some time. He survives on "sustenance," which means a tiny government benefit, which he supplements by selling the fish he catches. But this does little to alleviate his financial anxieties. He lives in a small cabin for which he must pay rent. Fred is uneducated, unlike Ken, with whom he has little in common. Fred is full of envy of the easier, more successful life that he thinks Ken enjoys. He envies Ken's muscular body and his greater success with women. Fred's envy seems to center on a woman named Mary. They used to be the closest of friends, but now Mary is in domestic service at the home of Ken's aunt, where Ken himself lives. Perhaps it is this loss of Mary that provides the final impetus for Fred to plan his spiteful, unprovoked murder. He reveals himself to be a petty, cold, calculating man, who lacks any positive feeling for a man who is supposed to be his friend.

Ken

Ken is Fred's companion on the fishing trip. He is the opposite of Fred in almost every way. About the only thing they have in common is that they both smoke cigarettes. Ken is better educated than Fred. He is also physically superior, being over six feet tall and strongly built. He rows far better than Fred could ever hope to do. Ken also, according to Fred, does well with the ladies. Although Ken, like Fred, is also out of work, his financial situation is not as difficult as Fred's. He regards his time out of work as a holiday. Living with his aunt, he does not have to pay rent, and he also has savings. His one apparent weakness, which Fred ruthlessly exploits, is that he never learned to swim. He says that he has had no need to do so, since he has lived mostly in country towns. Ken regards his companion as somewhat odd, because of some of the remarks Fred makes, but he never for a moment suspects the cold malice with which Fred regards him.