As original ideas in literature and film are starting to become a dying breed, writers are now giving characters with traditional roles very untraditional characteristics. In the novel After the Woods, Kim Savage, the author of the story, incorporates a very contemporary type of character known as an antihero. Often either hated or loved by reader, the antihero is a protagonist in a story whose characteristics are seen by many as selfish and crude. These characteristics include a diminished sense of morality, cowardice, and very strong sense of self-interest. The antihero in the novel After the Woods is Liv, the more self-centered of the two female, teenage protagonists. In this response paper I will attempt to explain why readers such as myself take such liking to such a controversial and morally ugly character. The first reason that readers like characters such as Liv so much is that they portray the unappealing and intrinsic selfishness that all people somewhere have. The antihero’s actions reflect what any morally average person would do, and this makes readers feel very uncomfortable knowing that they would more than likely do the same. This discomfort is what makes characters such as these so oddly compelling. In the fourth chapter of the novel while Julia is having a “daymare” of the incident, we first see how Liv exemplifies these …show more content…
Having issues makes characters such as these much more unique and memorable than an ordinary hero. In almost every story the audience has a fairly uniform idea of what a hero is. This would be the quintessential Mr. Perfect, Superman archetype that has been used thousands of times before. When a hero or antihero has flaws, there many options to develop this character to texturize the narrative, and giving the character flaws can give the reader something to relate to as mentioned
When it comes to being a tragic hero the character has to have the qualities of being a tragic hero. A tragic hero is where the main character of a tragedy whose fatal flaw leads to his or her destruction. Either the character was born into society as a great man or a slave, they may have carry
A tragic flaw, a fatal flaw, hamartia, a personality defect -- people can call it what they like, but ultimately, a tragic flaw is a personal fault in a character that leads to his downfall. The person who has the tragic flaw is known as the tragic hero. However, there are several more components that make up a such an individual. One idea is that tragic heroes in a story are usually dynamic; they change at least once throughout the narrative. An example of a tragic hero is King Creon in the play Antigone, but real people can be regarded as tragic heroes as well. Like Creon, in the play Antigone by Sophocles, Drew Barrymore should be considered a tragic hero because both have high status, noble qualities, and a tragic flaw. They recognize their flaws and suffer the consequences.
They do not particularly want to be brave or noble but their actions lead them to be a hero. Facing difficult decisions and doubt are also classic traits of an anti-hero. They often lack confidence in themselves, refuse to accept their fate as a hero or don't even realise their status or ability. At a certain point, anti-heroes usually transcend into either a tragic or romantic hero. Anti-heroes can be identified in many different texts, however, all of them
The hero stands as an archetype of who we should be and who we wish to be. However, the hero has inherent flaws which we do not wish to strive towards. In literature, these flaws are not used as examples of what we should be but rather as examples of what not to be. This is especially dominant in the Greek hero. While the Greek hero follows his fate, making serious mistakes and having a fairly simple life, the Anglo-Saxon "super" hero tries, and may succeed, to change his fate, while dealing with a fairly complex life. The Greek hero is strong and mighty while his wit and intelligence are highly valued. In the Greek tragedy, the hero struggles to avoid many flaws. Among these flaws are ambition, foolishness, stubbornness, and hubris-the excessive component of pride. He must overcome his predestined fate-a task which is impossible. From the beginning of the tale, it is already clear that the hero will ultimately fail with the only way out being death. In Oedipus, the hero is already confronted with a load of information about his family and gouges his eyes out. At this point, when he tries to outwit his fate he has already lost and is sentenced to death.
When people think of a hero, they picture someone flawless, someone who does no wrong. A hero is humble and is recognized for constantly saving people in dangerous situations. But that is not realistic. Heroes have flaws, and they do not always make the right choices, but they are still heroes because their courageous actions outweigh their rather dishonorable ones. This topic is discussed in the epic poem, The Odyssey by Homer. Odysseus does not always fit his image as god-like, but he is still very much a hero because he has respectable morals and he protects those in need of protection.
In her transformation of the well-known fable "Little Red Riding Hood," Angela Carter plays upon the reader's familiarity. By echoing elements of the allegory intended to scare and thus caution young girls, she evokes preconceptions and stereotypes about gender roles. In the traditional tale, Red sticks to "the path," but needs to be rescued from the threatening wolf by a hunter or "woodsman." Carter retells the story with a modern perspective on women. By using fantasy metaphorically and hyperbolically, she can poignantly convey her unorthodox and underlying messages.
By definition, a tragic hero is a protagonist that due to some tragic flaw loses everything he has. Throughout history, literature has always been filled with main characters possessing some tragic flaw. In Macbeth, Macbeth’s tragic flaw is his enormous ambition to become king. In Hamlet, Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his need for revenge for the death of his father at the hands of his uncle. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s tragic flaw is his need to be remembered. In the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, Beowulf also has a tragic flaw, excessive pride and the search for fame, which ultimately leads to his demise.
Like the Good Other Woman, the Evil Other Woman often spends much of her life hidden away in the castle, secret room, or whatever, a fact suggesting that even a virtuous woman’s lot is the same she would have merited had she been the worst of criminals. The heroine’s discovery of such Other Women is in the one case an encounter with women’s oppression-their confinement as wives, mothers, and daughters-and in the other with a related repression: the confinement of a Hidden Woman inside those genteel writers and readers who, in the idealization of the heroine’s virtues, displace their own rebellious
...e relationship with men, as nothing but tools she can sharpen and destroy, lives through lust and an uncanny ability to blend into any social class makes her unique. Her character is proven as an unreliable narrator as she exaggerates parts of the story and tries to explain that she is in fact not guilty of being a mistress, but a person caught in a crossfire between two others.
Margaret Atwood’s story Lusus Naturae documents what it is like to be seen as a monster by both your own family and your larger community. Despite the fact that she is person with thoughts and feelings, the Narrator’s family shuns and neglects her where as the rest of the village forms a mob and kills her. The reason as to why this happens is because both the Narrator’s family and village are afraid of what they do not know and are ignorant to the fact that she is a person.
“Munro’s people are the immanences of our daily lives” (Bloom 2). This quotation, written by Harold Bloom, American literary critic, captures the essence of Alice Munro’s work splendidly. Munro does not aim to be a great literary hero, though she is, but rather to write about life as it is. Her work is naturalistic, one of the greatest appeals of her writing. Through that naturalism, Munro writes of ordinary sorrow, ordinary love, and ordinary passion. Nothing is meant to transcend the human existence, but rather exist in harmony with that existence. Within the human existence, Munro breaks societal norms by writing about the aspects of humanity that are uncomfortable and foreboding. From her methods, to her reasoning, to the importance of her work, Alice Munro disassembles societal expectations of normality in regards to sexuality.
The obedience curse in Ella Enchanted and the desire for beauty in Fairest are reflective of the expectation imposed by the gender norms of society and the obsession with appearance. The young female heroine in The Paper Bag Princess defies the social norms of women by courageously saving her prince. Much like Lady Wendylyn in The Knight Who Was Afraid of the Dark faces her fears to help Sir Fed the brave female roles stand out as more than the damsel in destress or the needy princess waiting for her prince to sweep her off her feet. The plots of all four of these books present the reader with a strong female character and a non-conventional spin on the gender norms we expect to read in a
Following Morell’s definition of an anti-hero, or more precisely, of an unlikeable protagonist, we learn the benefits of using unlikely leads in our stories to make them more interesting, complex, unpredictable, and insightful (32). She explains how there is a ‘fine line’ in balancing traits that must be kept in order to make the reader feel captivated by the characters. Too much likeability, and the antihero becomes a hero. Too many negative traits, and they become too unlikeable to even relate to (43). Despite of this, there is an abundant number of combinations in character creation for unlikeable protagonists, since the traits we give them can be picked from two sets that are normally exclusive to villains and heroes, respectively. One of the most popular combos is of an antihero whose sense of duty guides all his or her actions. However, what is more interesting is seeing them betray (or adopt) this sense of duty. To understand why it works, this paper aims to explain the often misinterpreted definition of ‘a sense of duty’, and uses two ‘unlikeable’ protagonists as examples as they cycle in their use of moral duty throughout their respective stories: Dan Dunne, from the film Half Nelson, and Helen Farraley from Heathcock’s work Volt.
It is the aim of this piece to consider how two elements are developed in the opening chapters of three classic novels written by 19th century English women: Emma, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre, respectively. The elements to be considered are a) character; and b) character relationships. Consideration will be given to see how each opening chapter develops these two aspects, and the various approaches will be compared and contrasted as well.
For a time, the main characters in a story, poem, or narrative were easily classified as either being a hero or a villain. A hero would be easy to identify by the traits he'd possess, such as bravery, honesty, selflessness, trustworthiness, courage, leadership, and more. The villain would be easy to identify as well, possessing traits such as maliciousness, deceitfulness, immorality, dark, wishing harm upon others, and more. But what if the character lacked the natural heroic qualities but wasn't a villain either? What if the person displayed personality flaws that would traditionally be associated with a villain, but has heroic intentions? These questions were finally answered with the emergence of the anti-hero in literature.