Nineteen Minutes

by

Jodi Picoult

Peter Houghton Character Analysis

The main character in the novel and the perpetrator of the school shooting around which the narrative is centered. He is 17 years old when he commits the shooting and 18 when he is tried in court, yet due to the nonchronological nature of the narrative, the reader also gets glimpses into Peter’s life from infancy onward. Peter is a weak, sensitive, and troubled boy—this is true even as a baby, when he has difficulty sleeping. It is never properly explained why Peter struggles where others—notably his older brother, Joey—find life easy. Peter is subjected to intense bullying from his very first day of kindergarten, and this has a significant impact on his personality. He is desperate to be accepted but finds that he is automatically disliked by pretty much everyone he meets. The one exception to this is Josie, the daughter of his mother Lacy’s friend Alex. As children, Peter and Josie are best friends, and Josie defends him from bullies. However, once they get to middle school and Josie is accepted into the popular crowd, she realizes that being friends with Peter is a liability, and they drift apart. Peter is devastated and resentful about this turn of events. In high school, after a period of questioning his sexual orientation due to constantly being called slurs for a gay man, Peter comes to realize that he has a crush on Josie and confesses his love for her in an email that Josie’s friend Courtney sends to the whole school. Shortly after, Peter is “pantsed” in the cafeteria by Josie’s boyfriend, Matt, which is the final straw in triggering him to commit the mass shooting. After killing 10 people and wounding 19 more, Peter is captured and imprisoned. He is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, but he kills himself soon after the trial by stuffing a sock down his throat.

Peter Houghton Quotes in Nineteen Minutes

The Nineteen Minutes quotes below are all either spoken by Peter Houghton or refer to Peter Houghton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Victims vs. Perpetrators Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 3: Hours After Quotes

How could you change a boy’s bedding every week and feed him breakfast and drive him to the orthodontist and not know him at all?

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 5: The Day After Quotes

Did everyone in jail think they were innocent? All this time Peter had spent lying on the bench, convincing himself that he was nothing like anyone else in the Grafton County Jail—and as it turned out, that was a lie.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

The town of Sterling would analyze to death what she had done to her son—but what about what she would do for him? It was easy to be proud of the kid who got straight A’s and who made the winning basket—a kid the world already adored. But true character showed when you could find something to love in a child everyone else hated.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:

Everyone wants their kid to grow up and go to Harvard or be a quarterback for the Patriots. No one ever looks at their baby and thinks, Oh, I hope my kid grows up and becomes a freak. I hope he gets to school every day and prays he won’t catch anyone’s attention. But you know what? Kids grow up like that every single day.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton (speaker)
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 7: Ten Days After Quotes

Monsters didn’t grow out of nowhere; a housewife didn’t turn into a murderer unless someone turned her into one. The Dr. Frankenstein, in her case, was a controlling husband. And in Peter’s case, it was the whole of Sterling High School. Bullies kicked and teased and punched and pinched, all behaviors meant to force someone back where he belonged. It was at the hands of his tormentors that Peter learned how to fight back.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 8: One Year Before Quotes

What if you took the prey… and made them the hunters?

Peter got out of bed and sat down at his desk, pulling his eighth-grade yearbook from the drawer where he’d banished it months ago. He’d create a computer game that was Revenge of the Nerds, but updated for the twenty-first century. A fantasy world where the balance of power was turned on its head, where the underdog finally got a chance to beat the bullies.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton
Related Symbols: Hide-n-Shriek
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 9: One Month After Quotes

Like Peter, Derek Markowitz was a computer whiz. Like Peter, he hadn’t been blessed with muscles or height or, for that matter, any gifts of puberty. He had hair that stuck up in small tufts, as if it had been planted. He wore his shirt tucked into his pants at all times, and he had never been popular.

Unlike Peter, he hadn’t gone to school one day and killed ten people.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Derek Markowitz
Page Number: 277
Explanation and Analysis:

Children didn’t make their own mistakes. They plunged into the pits they’d been led to by their parents. She and Lewis had truly believed they were headed the right way, but maybe they should have stopped to ask for directions.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton, Lewis Houghton, Joey Houghton
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1: Five Months After Quotes

Dorian Gray had a portrait that grew old and evil while he remained young and innocent-looking. Maybe the quiet, reserved mother who would testify for her son had a portrait somewhere that was ravaged with guilt, twisted with pain. Maybe the woman in that picture was allowed to cry and scream, to break down, to grab her son’s shoulders and say What have you done?

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton
Page Number: 357
Explanation and Analysis:

“He used to like the peanut butter on the top half of the bread and the marshmallow fluff on the bottom.” Alex smiled a little. “And he had the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a little boy. He could find anything I’d dropped—an earring, a contact lens, a straight pin—before it got lost permanently.”

Related Characters: Alex Cormier (speaker), Peter Houghton
Page Number: 386
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3: Five Months After Quotes

“Was there ever anything in Peter’s personality that led you to believe he was capable of an act like this?”
“When you look into your baby’s eyes,” Lacy said softly, “you see everything you hope they can be… not everything you wish they won’t become.”

Related Characters: Lacy Houghton (speaker), Jordan McAfee (speaker), Peter Houghton
Page Number: 419
Explanation and Analysis:
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Peter Houghton Quotes in Nineteen Minutes

The Nineteen Minutes quotes below are all either spoken by Peter Houghton or refer to Peter Houghton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Victims vs. Perpetrators Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 3: Hours After Quotes

How could you change a boy’s bedding every week and feed him breakfast and drive him to the orthodontist and not know him at all?

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 5: The Day After Quotes

Did everyone in jail think they were innocent? All this time Peter had spent lying on the bench, convincing himself that he was nothing like anyone else in the Grafton County Jail—and as it turned out, that was a lie.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

The town of Sterling would analyze to death what she had done to her son—but what about what she would do for him? It was easy to be proud of the kid who got straight A’s and who made the winning basket—a kid the world already adored. But true character showed when you could find something to love in a child everyone else hated.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:

Everyone wants their kid to grow up and go to Harvard or be a quarterback for the Patriots. No one ever looks at their baby and thinks, Oh, I hope my kid grows up and becomes a freak. I hope he gets to school every day and prays he won’t catch anyone’s attention. But you know what? Kids grow up like that every single day.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton (speaker)
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 7: Ten Days After Quotes

Monsters didn’t grow out of nowhere; a housewife didn’t turn into a murderer unless someone turned her into one. The Dr. Frankenstein, in her case, was a controlling husband. And in Peter’s case, it was the whole of Sterling High School. Bullies kicked and teased and punched and pinched, all behaviors meant to force someone back where he belonged. It was at the hands of his tormentors that Peter learned how to fight back.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 8: One Year Before Quotes

What if you took the prey… and made them the hunters?

Peter got out of bed and sat down at his desk, pulling his eighth-grade yearbook from the drawer where he’d banished it months ago. He’d create a computer game that was Revenge of the Nerds, but updated for the twenty-first century. A fantasy world where the balance of power was turned on its head, where the underdog finally got a chance to beat the bullies.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton
Related Symbols: Hide-n-Shriek
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 9: One Month After Quotes

Like Peter, Derek Markowitz was a computer whiz. Like Peter, he hadn’t been blessed with muscles or height or, for that matter, any gifts of puberty. He had hair that stuck up in small tufts, as if it had been planted. He wore his shirt tucked into his pants at all times, and he had never been popular.

Unlike Peter, he hadn’t gone to school one day and killed ten people.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Derek Markowitz
Page Number: 277
Explanation and Analysis:

Children didn’t make their own mistakes. They plunged into the pits they’d been led to by their parents. She and Lewis had truly believed they were headed the right way, but maybe they should have stopped to ask for directions.

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton, Lewis Houghton, Joey Houghton
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1: Five Months After Quotes

Dorian Gray had a portrait that grew old and evil while he remained young and innocent-looking. Maybe the quiet, reserved mother who would testify for her son had a portrait somewhere that was ravaged with guilt, twisted with pain. Maybe the woman in that picture was allowed to cry and scream, to break down, to grab her son’s shoulders and say What have you done?

Related Characters: Peter Houghton, Lacy Houghton
Page Number: 357
Explanation and Analysis:

“He used to like the peanut butter on the top half of the bread and the marshmallow fluff on the bottom.” Alex smiled a little. “And he had the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a little boy. He could find anything I’d dropped—an earring, a contact lens, a straight pin—before it got lost permanently.”

Related Characters: Alex Cormier (speaker), Peter Houghton
Page Number: 386
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3: Five Months After Quotes

“Was there ever anything in Peter’s personality that led you to believe he was capable of an act like this?”
“When you look into your baby’s eyes,” Lacy said softly, “you see everything you hope they can be… not everything you wish they won’t become.”

Related Characters: Lacy Houghton (speaker), Jordan McAfee (speaker), Peter Houghton
Page Number: 419
Explanation and Analysis: