In life, changes in character can come from the exposure of vulnerability and humility. Richard Peck and Ben Mikaelsen both wrote quality pieces on the work of realization in weakness which evolved or inferred an evolution in personality of the character. Mr. Peck’s “Priscilla And The Wimps” follows the story of a school bully who faces indignity when a fellow student stands up to him. Mr. Mikaelsen’s “Touching Spirit Bear” revolves around the experiences of an aggressive young man who is sent to an island to learn how to release his anger and eventually heal. While these two stories follow different plots, they come together with their ability to demonstrate the changes in personality from facing shame.
In the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is Richie Perry. At seventeen he graduated high school in Harlem, and he wanted to go to college, but his mother couldn’t afford to send him to college since she was an alcoholic. So he joined the army to escape his unfortunate future, but joining the army meant he had to leave his little brother Kenny, who saw him as a father figure since their father left when they were younger. Perry was sent to Vietnam and through his journey, he made lifelong bonds with many different people such as PeeWee, Monaco, and etc. Also in his journey, he suffers from mental and physical wounds.
A trait simply described as the overestimation of oneself can be a quintessential element in understanding a character’s downfall. People such as Chris McCandless, Oedipus and Tiger Woods are key examples when trying to relate, understand, and analyze what we know today as “Hubris”. The connections that can be made between each of these characters describe the very nature of how a hero will ultimately meet their bane as a result of being blinded by their own flaws. The death of Chris McCandless was an extremely controversial subject that involved many different people. The justification of his death can be argued in a way .
Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood epitomizes the shifting sentiments related to the murder of the Clutter family which range from terror, to sorrow, to pride, and all mixed emotions in between. Yet through Capote’s particular descriptions about each character, the connection between their feelings and their actions become further clarified. In effect, the readers experience feelings of sympathy for the victims, their friends and family, the investigators, and even the brutal murders of the innocent family. In order to craft this association, Capote employs a pathos appeal to amplify the audience’s ability to sympathize with each and every character.
It is why we write books; to tell the tales we wish were our own, but sadly, disappointedly, will never be. We idealize ourselves in our characters, we project our personalities, our thoughts, our emotions, into the characters on the page, the ink our medium of imagination. We write stories, imagining ourselves to be the perfect heroes we write about. However, as we see at the end of “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” fate is a fickle mistress, and romantics like Janie don’t get their “happily-ever-afters.”
Evelyn Nakano Glenn has stated throughout her book that there are “systems of control” that have acted as “a central feature of the U.S economy” (5). Glenn believes that the U.S economy has been able to implement a system of control, in the Labor of people, by racialization and gendered coercion in a manner whereby employers can assert higher authority and worker constraints. The notion “higher authority” correlates to a term she mentions called Citizenship, whereby “worker constraints” touches on the term Contracts. By appealing these two terms Glenn takes the stand in her book that this is the basis of how labor exploitation arises via racialized and gendered coercion. The Citizenship aspect of her reasoning incorporates who, we, as a community
Sometimes in stories and in life, people or characters in a story may seem like outsiders, yet they may have a bigger impact than expected. This applies to protagonists: Barton in “Bastien: A X-mas in the Great Salt Marshes of Louisiana” by Sallie Rhett Roman and Kristian Koppig in “Tite Poulette” by George Washington Cable. Both of these men were in very different situations, yet they both attempted to save people who may have perceived them as outsiders. Barton helped clear the name of Bastien’s son, Paul and Kristian Koppig intervened when Madame John and her daughter, Tite Poulette, felt threatened Monsieur de la Rue. These two men, who are outsiders to the people they will help, have yet to understand the impact they will have.
In most stories, all developing characters have flaws. Many problems are caused by a character’s personal flaw. They can also be what draws the reader in, and it can be what connects the reader to the character. A certain fatal flaw is the inability to let go. In the stories, “Helen on Eighty-Sixth Street”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, and “The Scarlet Ibis” all of the characters are related because of their inability to let go.
Not only can we learn from the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, but also in the poem Sympathy because we can relate to what the author is talking about. Through these examples, it is clear that authors can best create empathy in their readers by developing strong characters that go through problems that the reader can relate to or learn
She put her imperfect characters in often times disturbing conditions. Her writing delved into religion and the morality of her characters when such situations arose. O’Connor brilliantly uses dark twists and foreshadowing to give her stories an additional appeal. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the story opens with the grandmother not wanting to go to Florida on account of the fact that a murderer had escaped and was on the loose(361). This exemplifies O’Connor’s proficient use of foreshadowing.
In Dante’s Inferno, Dante Alighieri's depiction of Satan at the bottom of hell reveals the theme that in Hell the punishment is always befitting of the due to the fact that the lower you go, the farther that person is from god. The picture of Satan satisfies the reader because he shows that he is the opposite of god and that he is full of evil. Lucifer is the demon in the circles of hell which he has three faces, and bat like wings in which he creates the cold wind where the sinners suffer. “The face in the middle was red, the color of anger. The face on the right was white blended with yellow, the color of impotence.
shows the readers that that vanity and lack of self-awareness can make some vulnerable and easily fall for the evilness of the world. Because Connie became vulnerable, she was easily persuaded by Arnold, who was portrayed as the Devil figure and the darkness that exists, to leave her the known safety of her home and to embark on the road to the unclear future. Oates’s story teaches the readers to be cautious of their surroundings and of the people that are unfamiliar to them that live in the same society. That is because even if someone appears to look a certain way they might have a mask that hides the true darkness and evilness that is in their body and
Perspectives of readers influence the levels of fearsomeness than certain objects or people tend to be in the perspective of the readers. Although fearsomeness is often seen as a quality that is associated with villainous characters, upon closer examination it is obvious that the sympathy that the reader feels for the character is not dependent upon how fearsomeness or lack of fearsomeness of the character. Sympathetic and fearsome characters presented in novels such as The Night Wanderer by Drew Hayden Taylor present fearsomeness which may not fit the particular views of some people. The reader’s perception of if a character is sympathetic or fearsome is not dependent upon if the character is perceived as fearsome. Fearsomeness is often attributed
Empathy is one of the things that bonds us as human beings; being able to feel for somebody else’s problems when they clearly do not affect us at all is why valuing literature is so important.
To Suffer or Not to Suffer As human beings, we try to eschew from the suffering and adversities that plague human morality. Nonetheless, society remains drawn to the surplus of tragedies in plays, movies, and literary works. Not only do these works provide an escape from our own hardships, but suffering and tragedy is a significant aspect to the development of human society. Personally, I have experienced my own share of sorrow, trauma, and difficulties in life. While they may not be as severe as those faced by the characters in A Doll’s House and Never Let Me Go, a pervasive theme still manifests in the presence of suffering.
