The Man with the Cards Character Analysis

The man with the cards is the stranger who sends Ed a series of playing cards with names of those in need. His goal, the reader learns at the end of the novel, is to use Ed’s example to prove that anyone, no matter how ordinary, may reach their full potential in order to help others. Not only does the man send the cards, he also tells Ed that he organized the failed bank robbery at the beginning of the novel, instructed the Edgar Street man to abuse his wife, and killed Ed’s father, showing the depth of his power over the events of Ed’s life. He writes all of these events down in a folder which he gives to Ed at the end of the novel. The man is unnamed, leaving his identity open to interpretation. One could interpret him as God, given the seemingly omnipotent and omniscient influence he exerts over Ed’s life. One could also view the man as the author of the novel himself, because the man dictates Ed’s life in order to prove a point, just as an author writes characters to do the same. Either way, the man represents the powerful outside forces that influence an individual’s life by challenging them beyond their perceived potential. At the end of the novel, the man tells Ed that Ed must now live his life on his own and then walks away from Ed’s house while writing in a notebook, symbolizing the withdrawal of this outside influence on Ed’s life. The man’s departure shows how circumstance controls an individual’s life up until a point, but after that an individual must make their own decisions.