Hello, Universe

“With the exception of Virgil, that’s how the Salinas family was—big personalities that bubbled over like pots of soup. Virgil felt like unbuttered toast standing next to them.”

Virgil describes the contrast between his exuberant family and himself. The words he uses evoke one interesting object and another that is dull. The comparison implies that Virgil is deficient in some way and ought to be more like a pot of soup than toast. 

“Virgil had long suspected that his brothers were crafted out of a factory that made perfect, athletic, perpetually happy children, and he was made from all the leftover parts.” 

As in the previous quote, Virgil is making an unfavorable comparison between himself and his family. His outcast status is emphasized further because his brothers are twins while he is the loner sibling. His choice of words to describe them implies an ideal, while he is made of scraps.

“When they called him Turtle, it was like when Chet Bullens at school called him a retard. He knew his parents weren’t like Chet Bullens, but he also knew that they were poking fun at his shyness.”

Virgil’s dilemma is that he is being persecuted on two fronts. While he can avoid the school bully, his home provides no refuge. Although his family doesn’t mean to be cruel, they erode his self-esteem as surely as Chet’s taunts do.