Category: Character

Most modern children grow up listening to their mothers tell fairytales and other fictional stories, but what did they do before the time of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White? In earlier centuries, it was not uncommon for care of small children to be delegated to an aristocratic mother’s servants and subordinates. As displayed in The…

Sir Francis Bacon is often cited as the progenitor of the phrase “knowledge is power”. This sentiment, if true, would render helpless Catherine Morland of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. When the reader first encounters Catherine, she is an ingenuous girl and is unfamiliar with the ways of fashionable society. Her early companion, Isabella Thrope, foils…

Mathilde Loisel of “The Necklace” and Dee of “Everyday Use” can easily be compared and contrasted, for they treat others very similarly, and the situations that they either put themselves in or, unfortunately, fall into are ironic. Although the stories take place in completely different settings, the similarities between the two are striking. The authors…

In Wuthering Heights, author Emily Bronte depicts Heathcliff, one of the main characters, as an incarnation of evil. Heathcliff is first introduced in the novel as the unpleasant, unwelcoming landowner of Wuthering Heights, and from this first impression, it is easy to believe that Heathcliff has possessed his evil qualities from birth. However, it is…

Many aspects of Heathcliff’s personality are apparently “fiendish,” complementing his role as the ‘Byronic hero’ of the Wuthering Heights, a character who is dark, rebellious, and antisocial. However, the Byronic hero is also seen to be an enticingly romantic character, while Heathcliff displays a very different sort of persona. With his mistreatment as a child,…

Charlotte Bronte’s greatest error in her preface to Wuthering Heights is her striking underestimation of Emily Bronte’s understanding of the world and human nature. Charlotte writes that her sister had little knowledge of the practicalities of the world, due to her lifestyle of secluded, quiet observation. Undeniably Emily’s isolationist lifestyle influenced her choices of setting…

In his play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare puts his minor characters to good use. Romeo’s friend Mercutio and Juliet’s nurse are both characters that are not considered the main focus of the play, but nevertheless play a crucial role in the lives of Shakespeare’s central characters. The nurse acts as a link between the Capulet…

What defines a “hero” can vary immensely, depending on whom you ask: some heroes can be veterans who fight for their country, while others can just be common citizens who help and save others. But could someone who survives a risky operation have the qualities of a hero? In the short story “Flowers for Algernon”…

Human nature undeniable has many facets is undeniable. Whether or not some character traits are superior to others, however, is debatable. One such deliberation is whether sense invariably triumphs over sensibility. Through her characters Catherine Morland in “Northanger Abbey” and Marianne Dashwood in “Sense and Sensibility,” Jane Austen boldly attempts, and succeeds, in answering this…

Some of the most readable and critically acclaimed social commentaries in the English language, such as Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, employ a fascinating protagonist and numerous sarcastic intrusions. Thomas Hardy similarly produces a beautiful novel in Tess of the d’Urbervilles because of his intriguing characterization and his…