Characterisation of Laylor

Outer characterisation

Laylor is the second important character in “Loose Change” by Andrea Levy. She is about eighteen years old (l. 38) and speaks poor English with an accent as she comes from Uzbekistan: “Then she said, ‘You look?’ She had an accent but I couldn’t tell then where it was from; I thought maybe Spain.” (p. 1, ll. 27-29)

She and her brother have recently fled their country because their parents were arrested. Laylor and her brother do not have enough money to support themselves and have no acquaintances in the UK. As a result, they are sleeping on the street.

Laylor’s physical characteristics are only presented from the narrator’s subjective perspective. This description is often fairly negative:

She had the most spectacular eyebrows. I could see the lines of black hair, like magnetised iron...