In most stories, there are characters that the author will use to help develop and tell the plot of the tale. Villains, superheroes, and monsters–all of these are characters with which the reader is familiar. Authors use many techniques to develop the personalities of these...
Experiences refer to the nature of the events someone or something undergoes, and can either change a person for better or for worse. Throughout the novel, Fifth Business the protagonist, Dunstan Ramsay goes through many experiences that help make him the person he becomes by...
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...
In the story of “A Wrinkle in Time,” by Madeleine L’Engle, Meg Murray is a 13 year old child who has a lot of insecurities about her personality and her intelligence. Meg starts off as the “ugly duckling” of the family you could say. She...
Balram Halwai is a protagonist in Aravind Adiga’s epistolary novel The White Tiger, in the sense that he is the primary driver of events in the story, and due to the fact that he faces great challenge and adversity, and overcomes the difficulties in his...
In the novel, Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami, the protagonist Kafka Tamura, a fifteen-year-old Japanese, runs away from home intending to escape his father’s curse, which is that he will sleep with his sister and mather, then kill his father. During the escape,...
In the novel The Call of the Wild written by Jack London, Buck was stationed as a compelling leading character who undergoes multiple character developments throughout the novel due to nature and nurture. London’s approach of characterizing Buck has been highly recognized by Donald E....
The play Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose presents twelve different jurors who come from various backgrounds in a jury room. Their job is to “separate the facts from the fancy” and to determine if there is “reasonable doubt to the guilt of the young...
In James Fenimore Cooper’s story, “The Last Mohicans”, Hawkeye proves he is an American romantic hero when he plays lacrosse while readers discuss war, protects Cora and Alice rather than attempting to save his own life, and quests to find his love cora while not...
A hero is defined by Collins Dictionary as, “the main male character, who usually has good qualities.” A few good qualities found in many heroic figures include fighting for a noble cause, reflecting upon the ideals of society, and preforming courageous deeds. As one of...
The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by American writer Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she...
In Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs Albert Camus’ The Stranger, we are exposed to two very different characters, Said Mahran and Meursault. Both these characters are alienated from their societies, and change drastically as a result of this rejection. Using these novels as...
The title of the story Rashōmon is the name of an entryway in Kyōto, the biggest gate of Kyōto, actually. In any case, Kyōto has fallen on harsh occasions, and our protagonist is a recently ownerless samurai who has looked for the gate’s safe house...
For two stories of The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe and Miriam by Truman Capote, both protagonists are influenced by their powerful thoughts and mental issues, which cause by different objects from the outward world and the inner struggles. In the first case, the...
Thrusting into the world of Tokyo in the 1960’s, Norwegian Wood is a novel by Haruki Murakami, which was published in 1987. At first seeming very foreign and obscure, Norwegian Wood proves that even over a span of nearly five decades, not much changes socially....
Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian filmmaker, was best known for his 1970 masterpiece The Conformist, which was a huge inspiration to Francis Coppola when making The Godfather in 1972. The Conformist centers on the life of Marcello Clerici, a hitman working for the Organization for Vigilance...
Ever since the beginning of time, people have been plagued with the ever existing evils of the world. However, in a world where darkness exists, the forces of good are present to maintain balance. In today’s world, many take this belief for granted because in...
The evolving workplace of 1920s America presented industries and businesses with an innovative new standard of operation: work smarter, not harder. These innovations included the popularization of the assembly line, the right for women to vote (and, thereafter, the quest for the right to equal...
Introduction Jack London’s ‘To Build a Fire’ can really be seen as a job of art. It’s an excellent short story for anyone looking to read with subjects that anyone can relate to, such as survival and man versus nature. Everybody understands a dog is...
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a fantasy novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on twenty first of September 1937, to wide critical acclaim and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Bilbo Baggins was a Hobbit of the Shire,...
The search for identity that the protagonist, Grenouille, in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer occurs differently than others because his identity is driven by the beauty of the innocent scents which appeal to him. Grenouille is brought up with a gruesome environment, thus influencing...
Jack London’s short story ‘To Build a Fire’ tells a tale of a man that perceives his self as perfect in every way. This stubborn individual decides to travel solo, with his dog through the treacherous and uninviting environment of the Yukon. The man clearly...
Bildungsroman novels are identified by the grueling quest a protagonist undergoes in his search for place in society. The experiences the protagonist undergoes within this search contribute to their moral and psychological growth, building to one pinnacle point in their life, the long awaited identification...
In literature, the protagonist commonly possesses a negative trait that ultimately becomes their biggest flaw. Of these many possible flaws, selfishness can potentially be the worst of them. Selfishness can be defined as lacking consideration for others and being concerned with only one’s self. In...
Chay Yew, in “Porcelain” and “Wonderland,” examines various notions of “queer” through his characters, who desperately seek connections, and love, with the people around them. Their lives are marked by death, violence, and tragedy, which occurs not only because they are queer, but also because...
Annie John is a fictional novel that is inspired by true events written by Jamaica Kincaid. The novel follows the life of a girl named Annie John as she grows up in Antigua. Throughout the book, Annie struggles with conforming to the cultural standards of...
In “Shout,” Dagoberto Gilb focuses his story on the emotions and headspace of his protagonist, a manual laborer returning home from a hard day’s work. While he looks to escape the toil of his labor, this laborer realizes that his home life does not provide...
South Africa and America had a lot of similarities when it came to segregation of black people and white people, and white people not wanting to lose power over the blacks. In the novel, Cry, The Beloved Country there is an individual who wants a...
Matters and issues of the mind have both intrigued and puzzled writers for about as long as people have been writing. Some such writers have explored the inner workings of the mind of the madman, finding this type of character to be the most effective...
One of the most controversial plays of its period, The Merchant of Venice remembers many questions. When the reasons are addressed, it can be said that The Merchant of Venice is a rich work on religious, moral, class and gender discrimination. When the work is...