Empathetic Characters

Thesis Statement: Each story shows the reader how the characters struggle making them feel compassionate and empathetic towards the characters. Paul Haggis, a famous screenwriter once said, “You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you’re a writer.” Paul is giving a statement to writers that they have to show these emotions so the readers can connect to the characters. This is most certainly relating to James Hurst’s, “The Scarlet Ibis”, Edgar Allen Poe’s, “Cask of Amontillado”, and Richard Matheson’s, “Button, Button”. The reason of, is because each character has its own form of empathy and compassion and the readers experience it in these stories. Each story shows the reader how the characters struggle

Montresor says, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” (Poe 1). Montresor says this in the first sentence of the story which implies that he is having a struggle with another person who is Fortunato. Montresor has to struggle with a bully on his own and he wants revenge. Every victim of a bully wants revenge for what has been done to them. Nevertheless, Montresor gets ultimate revenge since he murdered Fortunato making the reader’s feel shocked. The compassion readers feel is for Fortunato for the reason that he should not have got that brutal way to die. Instead, Montresor should have just confronted him and worked things out. Montresor explains, “But the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk” (1). Before Montresor said this, he explained how he will not tolerate with a bully. He means that he has to risk for revenge because he knows what he is doing isn’t right. Readers could feel empathetic for the reason that they share the same feeling of wanting revenge from someone they do not like so they think to themselves how it is not necessary to think that way. Montresor declared, “My heart grew sick-on account of the dampness of the catacombs” (5).

Authur, a warm-hearted person, explains to Norma, a self-centered person, not to press the murder button which she ends up doing. Norma struggles on whether or not to press the button for fifty-thousand dollars but at the same time murdering a random person on the planet but, she ends up pressing the button either way. Norma says, “You said I wouldn’t know the one that died!” “My dear lady,” Mr. Steward said. “Do you really think you knew your husband?” (Matheson 9). Norma said this to Mr. Steward right after accidentally killing her husband by pressing the button. Norma was extremely tempted to press the button to get fifty-thousand dollars knowing that she would murder a random person. In real life it this were to occur for people or somebody, they would most likely want to press the button too because most people need the money so the struggle of not pressing the button would make someone sorrowful since they would not get any money. Even before Norma pressed the button she called Mr. Steward because she wanted to know more about the button and also wanted it back. The author mentions that “Norma almost hung up but she restrained herself” (5). Richard Matheson explains how Norma really wanted to know more about the button and how she was making a decision if she was going to call Mr. Steward or not. She wanted to know about the button so bad that she