Things that Help Book Characters Survive Serious Situations: Persistence, Cleverness, and Doing The Right

A lot of characters in books survive serious situations. Ever wondered how they do it. Those characters that do survive are either persistent, clever, or they are doing the right thing. Persistent characters survive because they are so motivated that they will let nothing stop them. Clever characters trick people to get out of a bad situation or they can trick others. When a character is doing the right thing they will never die because they are the hero of the book and they are doing nothing wrong.

To survive as a character in an extreme situation a character must have persistence.

One example of persistence is in the novel The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Christopher Boone is about a boy with autism who tries to find out who murdered his neighbor’s dog and to find his mother. Christopher ends up finding both because of his persistence. Christopher survives because he has the persistence to go out and find his mom and find who killed the dog. He ends up finding both through his persistence: 'And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? And I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.' In To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses memorable characters to explore civil rights and racism in the segregated Southern United States of the 1930s. Told through the eyes of Scout Finch, you learn about her father Atticus Finch, an attorney who hopelessly strives to prove the innocence of a black man unjustly accused of rape; and about Boo Radley, a mysterious neighbor who saves Scout and her brother Jem from being killed. Jem has persistence when Bob Ewell tries to kill him and Scout but Jems persistence in fighting Bob off keeps them both alive in time for an adult to come.

“The Cask Of Amontillado” is a story about Montressor who cleverly plans a way to kill Furtunado. In this quote it shows how Montressor is so clever by saying to your long life and knowing his life will not be long. “Drink,' I said, presenting him the wine. He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled. 'I drink,' he said, 'to the buried that repose around us.' 'And I to your long life.'(Poe) Another way that Montressor shows his cleverness by showing how he lures Fortunato in the cave to kill him. “Montresor lures Fortunato into the family vaults under the pretext that he needs Fortunato's opinion of the newly acquired Amontillado wine.”

Finally, the third reason of how characters survive a situation is doing the right thing. Atticus Jem and Scouts father from To Kill a Mockingbird survives by defending Tom Robinson because he is doing the right thing and helping this innocent man. Boo Radley is from the same book and he is Atticus’s neighbor who saves Jem and Scout. He survived by stepping in and helping the kids from Bob’s attack and ends up killing Bob, however Boo survived. I think that this is the most effective way because in stories the good guy or superhero never dies.

In brief, persistence, cleverness, and doing the right helps a character survive a dangerous situation. Being persistent like Christopher makes survival possible because while being autistic he went out in the real world and found his mom and who killed his neighbor’s dog. He had to go and talk to random strangers when talking to strangers is very difficult for him. Cleverness is very good because then the character can trick people or find ways out of death like Montressor, who got a man Fortunato drunk then cleverly took him to a cave to kill him out of revenge. If a character does the right thing like Atticus survival is always possible. Atticus tried to save an innocent man from jail, while doing this he faced segregation, riots, and almost death to his children. However, Atticus survived through all of that and in the end the person that gave him the most hate was killed. Out of all of the ways that characters can survive, doing the right thing will always be the best option because nothing bad ever happens to the good guy or superhero. It is the easiest way to survive as a character. All the other ways are complex and confusing and this is straightforward.