Uncle Willy is an old man with an eagerness for fun. Though he is already sixty years old, Uncle Willy is still very much a child. A drug addict, he escapes the closed-minded society of his small town by getting high. Even in his death, he keeps his childlike innocence, maintaining his joy and simplicity.
Uncle Willy is still like a young child. He hides himself in his store, refusing any customers except for country people and African Americans. His friends and companions are the little boys who crowd in his store after baseball games. Instead of the men’s Bible class, Uncle Willy opts to attend Sunday school with his friends. In fact, when Rev. Schultz takes Uncle Willy to the adult Bible class, the narrator (one of the boys) notes that he seems to be asking for help and seems “littler than ever.” The boys identify with him, as they can feel something in him similar to them. Uncle Willy treats the adult world like an enemy, ready to choke him with their rules and warnings. Rather, he would like to remain free; he takes drugs, he tells the boys, because he “likes it.”
The crusaders who try to “save” Uncle Willy never succeed in crushing his spirit. After his first rehab, he seems dead, but on closer notice, his eyes are “anything in the world except dead.” Like a child clutching their favorite toy, Uncle Willy clenches on to his freedom. He gleefully defies Mrs. Merridew’s Christianity, tricking his sister into buying him a car to visit brothels on weekends. He returns each Monday “insensible on the back seat.” Rather than accepting Mrs. Merridew’s world where he is reborn into society, Uncle Willy promptly adopts a new sin, alcoholism.
Of course, the opposition only gets stronger. But Uncle Willy still does not cooperate, buying himself a plane to escape. Instead of dying in the asylum, he will exit the stage his own way. The narrator knows that it will be “Uncle Willy’s last go-round” and that he’s “against all the old terrified and timid clinging to dull and rule-ridden breathing.” Uncle Willie wishes to fly to California, where he can escape the confines of adult society and life freely. Even in his death, he has an adventurous and free spirit.
To the narrator, and all the other children, Uncle Willie is the “finest man…because he had had fun all his life in spite of what (the adults) had tried to do to him or with him.” Uncle Willy’s story is the story of every child: the battle between childish innocence and the adult world. Somehow, Uncle Willy died a child, escaping the confines of the rules and traditions that smother his spirit and destroy his innocence.