In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan is an ambiguous character that puts a twist on this retelling of the Biblical villain. Milton forces the reader to look at evil and the antagonistic Satan in a more complex light in contrast to the unsympathetic figure referenced in other texts. As the fallen archangel, Satan is a struggling hero fighting against an oppressor, the devil that tempts man to their downfall, and the rebel that involuntarily does God’s bidding. Many of Satan’s attributes are complex
In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus is depicted as a morally ambiguous character; neither purely evil or purely good. Oedipus runs from his fate initially to prevent himself from pursuing what he believed was his fate; however, he is lead straight towards his real fate. He kills his biological father as he is headed to Thebes, where he takes the throne. Once he has taken the throne, he begins to try and save his city from the plague by looking for the murder of king Laius. However, what
In frankenstein by Mary Shelley a morally ambiguous character is the creature. The creature is an ambiguous because he shows a human sympathetic side when he tells Victor his tale. However, when he is neglected by human kind because of his appearance, he causes suffering to other people in order to get revenge on Victor. He has also done violent things, and he's a murderer. The moral ambiguity of the creature contributes to the major theme of the novel of how people will judge you by appearance before
Composition 04 October 2017 Mary Warren Moral ambiguity is lack of sense in ethical decision-making. This means morally ambiguous characters are difficult to classify as either good or evil, as they contain strong aspects of both. These types of characters generally have real problems, causing their inner conflicts, which also makes them sympathetic. Stories that have morally ambiguous characters usually create built-in tension, because there is always the question of whether their conniving nature will be
In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley there are many morally ambiguous characters, these characters tend to play a pivotal role in the novel and in Frankenstein the perfect character to fit the description in my eyes is the creature created by Victor Frankenstein. The view the reader has towards the character changes throughout the novel as the creature who was initially innocent as we can see when he meets the cottagers then becomes vengeful due to Victor’s ambition of ‘playing god’ where the creature
and in addition to the revolution more cruelty will occur. He explores the idea of justice and violence through the use of ambiguous characters with positive and negative qualities, meaning that they have to different sides to them; for example, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Dr. Manette. Throughout the story of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles dickens uses ambiguous characters to shows how violence and cruelty can be stopped through the power of true sacrifice. Charles Darnay is a French aristocrat
Morally ambiguous characters are quite common in many works of literature. These characters are written with vague, sometimes undefined, moralities which would make it difficult for the audience or reader to categorize the characters as simply good or evil. Characters’ moralities are not always black and white, heroic or villainous. Some characters lie in the gray area between good and evil. The character I chose to focus on was Macbeth from the Shakespearean play Macbeth. There is a widespread belief
In Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the deceptive Roger Chillingworth could most certainly be considered a morally ambiguous character. Throughout the novel, Roger Chillingworth everlastingly remains misleading as to whether he lies on the side of good or evil. Even at the end of The Scarlet Letter, the knowledge of Roger Chillingworth is extremely nebulous. The mysterious Roger Chillingworth, although ultimately emanating to be evil, attests to be a challenge when determining his morality
through the use of characters that are ambiguous, meaning that they have to different sides to them; for example, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Dr. Manette. Throughout the story of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles dickens shows the ambiguous characters through the power of true sacrifice. Charles Darnay is a French aristocrat who decides to move to England because he could not deal with the cruel ways of the French, especially his uncle, the Marquis. He is and ambiguous character because he is seen
In novels it is not uncommon for characters to be identified as morally ambiguous. It can be extremely difficult to identify a character as purely evil or purely good. In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker presents a morally ambiguous title character, Dracula. Dracula can be seen as evil by the obvious: he is a vampire that bites people to get their blood. But on the other hand, Dracula can also be seen as good. Dracula is not purposely trying to kill people, he is just trying to protect himself. Lots
Ambiguity of Hamlet In Shakespeare’s dramatic tragedy Hamlet, the reader finds ambiguity of one type and another here and there throughout the play. The protagonist himself is an especially ambiguous character is his own rite. Harold Bloom in the Introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet expounds on the ambiguity and mysterious conduct of the hero during the final act: When Horatio responds that Claudius will hear shortly from, presumably that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
In John Gardner’s, Grendel, the main character, Grendel, is a morally ambiguous character. This is because although he does commit evil in killing the men, through his eyes he is doing good by riding the world of these men. Grendel chooses to kill many men in Herot which is view as immoral but according to Grendel this is his purpose and he is right by doing so. To the reader Grendel is morally ambiguous as we know the crimes he commits are wrong but in the end, the reader still is sympathetic towards
In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character is written to portray both the protagonist and the antagonist, or in other words, a morally ambiguous character. At the beginning of the novel, Dorian is introduced as a godly and charming person, however, as the novel progresses it is revealed that Dorian is truly a demon. The pleasant personality that is portrayed through Dorian’s beauty is really a facade for his immoral behavior. In the first chapter, artist Basil Hallward speaks
In Heart of Darkness, all of Joseph Conrad’s characters seem to have morally ambiguous tendencies. The most prominently morally ambiguous character is Kurtz, whose distance from society changes his principles, and leads him to lose all sense of decorum. Conrad takes a cynical tone when describing Marlow's journey. Marlow's voyage through the Congo gives him insight to the horrific, dehumanizing acts that his company and Kurtz conduct. Conrad creates a parallel with the tone of his writing and the
quintessential characters that are all placed into the conventional categories of either good or bad. In these pieces, we are usually able to differentiate the characters and discover their true intentions from reading only a few chapters. However, in some remarkable pieces of work, authors create characters that are so realistic and so complex that we are unable to distinguish them as purely good or evil. In the novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky develops the morally ambiguous characters of Raskolnikov
from The Taming of the Shrew Women are ambiguous characters throughout texts such as The Odyssey and The Taming of the Shrew. In these two stories, there are female characters that are deceitful and beguiling towards men. Kirke and Bianca are two comparable characters that display such behavior. I will explain how both characters display ambiguity by hiding their true nature behind actions that they wouldn’t normally take; therefore these female characters are being deceitful to those who fall for
The character Pearl in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is the most ambiguous character in the novel. Pearl plays an important role as the daughter of Hester Prynne, who commits the sin of adultery. During this time of Puritan law, Hester was punished by having to wear the scarlet letter “A” on her chest to remind the world of her sin which was committing adultery. Even the Bible states that sin is wrong, “For the wages of sin is death:” (The Bible). Pearl was born and considered an outcast
Ambiguity within Hamlet The Shakespearean tragic drama Hamlet, though recognized as an unexcelled classic of tragedy by many literary critics, is nevertheless ambiguous in various words and actions. This problematic dimension of the drama will be considered in this essay. Howard Felperin, in his essay “O’erdoing Termagant,” expounds on the ambiguity within Hamlet’s directives to the plays (“O, it offends me to the soul . . .”): Yet whether or not Hamlet’s account of the purpose
one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity.¨ In literature, this type of character is called a ¨morally ambiguous character.¨ The character's actions discourage the reader from distinguishing him/her as ¨purely evil¨ or ¨purely good¨. Many times in life, the most moral people make an immoral mistake. Norton conveys that when this life concept is induced into characters, it presents a likable character in which one can relate to. Thus, morally
the children really as innocent as they seem? In the novel, Henry James rarely provides an in-depth character that the reader actually gets to know. From the young romantic governess, to the intelligent ten year old, James keeps his characters morally ambiguous in order to further the “Unsolved mystery” style. The main character, the Governess, is the perfect example of a morally ambiguous character. It is impossible to label her as purely good or evil, and much debate of this novel is on the trustworthiness