Answer:
The author uses characterization to develop the theme of victimization. Fredo is a victim of the bullying of young kids and his isolation. Throughout the story, we watch as the author uses the characterization of Fredo to develop victimization by having Fredo "wake up" to reality. For example, the young neighborhood boys pick on him, " He looked up to see three boys throwing things at him that he could not immediately identify. Nor could he recognize the boys. Were they his son's friends? Where was his son? "Filthy Fredo, filthy Fredo, ya ya-ya-ya," they shouted." When the neighborhood boys do this it wakes Fredo up to reality and he starts to realize that he is being victimized by these young boys. Later when he goes into his house he then realizes how he has become a victim to his own emotions and self-caused isolation. This is when Fredo realizes this, " In the end—after a year—they released him as "traumatized" but "harmless," Here this displays how he has become a victim to his own emotions and he has a traumatic past. Then when he looks in the mirror, " And he turned and gazed in the mirror—what he saw there stopped his heart. In the mirror was the head and shoulders of a man who had not bathed, shaven, or shorn his hair for five or more years and who had not seen himself in that time either." When Fredo looks in the mirror this is when he truly realizes what he has become a victim of over all these years.