One example of Kevin’s dominance would be when Kevin pushed Liam for not giving him a Toffo and after that, Liam “went home”. Through the abruptness of the narration, plus the passive behavior of Liam, we can show how much Kevin dominates over his peers and the respect and possibly fear they have for him. Liam was also scared to repeat his statement of Kevin being a liar when Kevin responded aggressively. Kevin’s dare intimidated Liam, resulting in him taking back his accusation. These examples show how Kevin dominance is presented in the novel.
Paddy also helped push and pull “Liam to the fire”. Paddy’s participation in this potentially dangerous action shows how Paddy wishes to be like Kevin and follows his actions without first considering what he is doing. On top of that, it also portrays the realistic nature of the boys and how they bully the children weaker than themselves. It is possible that due to Kevin’s dominance, the other boys too wish to be dominant like him and thus exercise their dominance over the children weaker than themselves.
Roddy Doyle establishes this early in the novel that Kevin is also very mischievous and loves to create trouble. The events of Kevin kicking “the fire” at Paddy and also claiming that “the main’s coming” so that Sinbad would feel that he was in a risky situation are examples of how Kevin demonstrates his mischievous qualities.
However, we can see that as the novel progresses, Kevin’s dominance begins to deteriorate. Liam openly defied Kevin when Kevin was acting as a ciúnas and left the group. This bold action of Liam contrasts Liam’s earlier behavior where he is always conformed to Kevin’s authority. In this section of the novel, Liam openly claimed that he found Kevin’s actions to be “stupid” and stood up to Kevin. This portrays Kevin’s decline in control and dominance over the group of boys. On top of that, Paddy also claimed that “no one was really listening” as Kevin was being “just Kevin again”. Before this, the boys would always follow Kevin without questioning his authority. However, this section of the novel marks the start of the boys finally starting to challenge Kevin’s leadership.
Roddy Doyle further portrays the decline of Kevin’s dominance. With the introduction of Charles Leavy, Paddy begins to admire Charles more than Kevin. This reinforces the idea of Kevin’s decreasing influence over the boys. Roddy Doyle uses the development of Kevin to aid Paddy’s development as a character. As Paddy realizes how foolish and immature Kevin is, Paddy begins to mature and change his opinions on the activities he used to do with Kevin.
When the group of boys use Ian’s sister’s doll like a voodoo doll, Kevin’s imagination is presented to be not completely aligned with the group of boys’ imagination, contrasting how it was at the beginning of the novel. The boys then disagree over the effectiveness of the voodoo doll and this disagreement emphasizes the deterioration of Kevin’s dominance over the group of boys as they begin to make a stand against Kevin.
At the end of the novel, however, Kevin is still seen as an instigator of trouble, still getting the boys to cry “boycott”. He is therefore still seen as a relatively static character as his portrayal at the end of the novel is somewhat similar to his portrayal in the beginning. Roddy Doyle uses Kevin as a character who aids the development of Paddy’s character and this successfully brings the plot forward, adding color to the story along the way.
