Character Analysis: What Motivates Characters to Make Decisions

Many people are tempted and persuaded to act a certain way and make certain decisions. However, many people fail to recognize that every deal or decision comes with several consequences. The motivation to create a deal, which potentially has the capability to immensely alter a person’s life, seems to make perfect sense, until that person realizes the consequences that come along with that deal. In three different pieces of work, characters are motivated to make deals that at the time seem to be flawless; however, the characters come to find that sometimes their drive to get involved in the deal is not worth the consequences and overall outcome. In Christopher Marlowe’s play, Doctor Faustus, Faustus sells his soul to the devil because he is no longer satisfied with the limits of traditional forms of knowledge. Much like Marlowe’s play, Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character, Dorian Gray, exchanges his soul for his idea of a better life. Dorian becomes infatuated with the idea of eternal youth and beauty to the extent where he is willing to sacrifice his soul to maintain those aspects for forever; however, Dorian does not grasp the consequences of his actions until later in the novel when it is too late to make any changes. Another famous work where the main character makes a deal to achieve their idea of a perfect life is in the film, The Little Mermaid, produced by Walt Disney. Ariel, the main character, exchanges her magnificent voice in order to have a pair of legs and takes the risky chance that she will never get her voice back. Many works of literature and film portray the idealistic motivations of humans and the amount of sacrifices and consequences people are willing to accept in order to achie...

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...ality that she ultimately chose to be slave to Ursula for the rest of her life.

Many people believe that making decisions is like writing on a chalkboard, easily done and easily erased. In spite of this widely accepted idea, it has proven to be very inaccurate. Before making a life altering decision based on pure whim, a person must take a step back and ask himself or herself if the outcome will be worth the sacrifice. Every character eventually realizes that the sacrifices they had to make were not worth reaching their idea of a utopian world, and in time, their impermeability is broken down when they realize they are not invincible. Decisions are meant to consume time and not be solely based off of motivation; therefore, if a person is not willing to become conscious of every possible outcome they may eventually be faced with numerous unintended consequences.