Essays on Character

In the novel, Obasan, Kogawa uses Naomi’s character development to convey that early life racism, internment and abandonment from loved ones can lead to one feeling confused about their identity. The narrator of the novel, Naomi, goes through a series of traumatic events as a...

The Catcher in the Rye takes place during the late 1940s to early 1950s, in a post World War II era. This also took place during the Cold War. The book begins at Pencey Prep, an exclusive boarding school in New Jersey. Later Holden returns...

Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” This is true to Liesel, the main character in The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak, because her body is as if it does not have a soul since she...

William Shakespeare’s play, Othello, takes place during the Renaissance period in Venice, Italy. The tragedy is about a man who uses his skill of manipulation to get revenge and causes chaos along with death. Iago manages to trick Othello into thinking that his wife, Desdemona,...

Many people balance the individual, community, and divine differently according to their values. In the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, Creon is the King of Thebes. Creon balances individualism his own way based on his own morals instead of what others may consider as right or...

In The Hobbit written by J. R. R. Tolkien, Bilbo Baggins was a timid, kind-hearted hobbit that lived in a luxurious hole in the ground. He was always ready for company, but never expected to get a guest that asked for his presence. After Gandalf,...

Biddy is introduced early in Great Expectations and is mentioned regularly throughout, though she is not one of the major characters. She does, however, serve as a constant reminder to Pip of what he is leaving behind and, as she is more of a peer...

In William Shakespeare’s final play, “The Tempest,” the playwright spins a magical web of a story that, although being comedic and light-hearted, subtly addresses the issues of absolutism, power and the monarchy. The main character in “The Tempest” is a man named Prospero. Formerly the...

Identity is not something that can simply be explained in a few words. There is a variety of factors that can make up someone’s identity – family, friends, culture, environment, hobbies, interests, and gender are just a few. Many people use these factors to self-identify....

Both C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea tackle the idea of the child-protagonists having to go on a type of journey to defeat their respective foes and partaking in a search for their self-identity...

Arthur Miller chose a Low-Man as his hero, because the queens and the kings don’t live anymore and writers can’t write about them. I think it’s great that Miller chose a person like Lowman to be his hero. Lowman is a regular person, he doesn’t...

The defects of the general psychological characteristics, behavioral traits, and emotions of humankind all impact a society. In William Golding’s allegory “Lord of the Flies”, a group of schoolboys stranded on an empty Pacific island make way into savagery because of humankind flaws. Golding asserts...

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the author, Wiesel tells his story of his life experiences during the Holocaust through the narrator Eliezer. Wiesel wrote this memoir to show people what his experiences were like to survive the concentration camps during the Holocaust. Also...

Desperately seeking a place to express one’s true personality and background is a major factor in the creation of internal conflicts. Additionally, as one approaches their coming-of-age, they are typically placed in a competitive environment that surrounds them with their peers. In private boarding schools,...

Edmund Burke once said, “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” In today’s society, power is taken and used in manipulative ways by prominent people in the public eye. We see celebrities pay their way out of punishments all the time. Julian Hayden...

Two completely different stories with many character similarities and differences are “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Edgar Allan Poe’s main character has a mental illness that won’t let him see or admit that he is deranged and Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells a story...

Throughout scenes 1 and 2 of A Streetcar Named Desire, playwright Tennessee Williams presents Stanley as extremely powerful and authoritative through the use of dialogue as well as stage directions. The audience immediately learns how strong Stanley is in a physical sense; however, we soon...

Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred details the harrowing journey of 26-year-old Dana Franklin. A modern black woman from 1970s Los Angeles, Dana is continuously jerked back through time to the land of her ancestors: early 1800s Maryland. Her task? Save her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin,...

In life, different variables affect an individual’s growth. These variables can include any aspect of a person’s life, ranging from family influence to personal passions. In the novels Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the authors use certain themes to shape the lives of their...

Sometimes, it is difficult to understand how important a certain problem is unless it is examined on a microscopic level. A broadly stated dilemma is abstract and thus difficult to relate to; on a micro level, it becomes easier to see exactly how the predicament...

In the book, Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Enkidu set out on an adventure to kill Humbaba. The two characters, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, are complete opposites from each other and this helps them get through a tough challenge. Gilgamesh, the epic hero, and Enkidu, the foil, have...

Disgrace is a novel written by John M. Coetzee, a novelist born in South Africa, which greatly influenced both his worldview and his creative activities. The fame brought by that particular literary work, Disgrace, is rather contradictory, though. On the one hand, it is the...

The character I chose for this essay is SpongeBob Squarepants. SpongeBob is a very positive, outgoing, and a well- dressed sea sponge. He lives in the Bikini Bottom with his pet snail Gary. His neighbors are his best friend Patrick Star, and Squidward Tentacles. He...

Sarah Orne Jewett’s nineteenth century tale “A White Heron” explores a temporary hindrance of a young girl’s relationship to nature. Sylvia, the nine-year-old heroine, maintains a simple life in the New England woodlands with her grandmother. With little to remember of her urban way of...

In the play, “Death of a Salesman,” Willy Loman experiences both the positive and the negative aspects of bipolar disorder: one moment he is upbeat and pleased, and the following he is furious and swearing at his children. Their connections are clearly difficult ones. Willy...

In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, there is a certain ambiguity surrounding the nature of the titular character. On the surface, she appears to be a reborn and grown up version of the child who was murdered by Sethe in an intended act of merciful infanticide....

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey portrays women as overwhelmingly negative, either dominating or submissive. Nurse Ratched, Vera Harding, and Billy’s mother are controlling women who use fear to reign over men and mask their feminine qualities. Candy Starr and Sandy Gilfilliam,...

Near the beginning of The House of Mirth, Wharton establishes that Lily would not indeed have cared to marry a man who was merely rich: “she was secretly ashamed of her mothers crude passion for money” (38). Lily, like the affluent world she loves, has...