Category: Character

In Thomas Hardy’s tendentious Victorian novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy uses a format akin to that of a to critique the double standards of Victorian society. His heroine, Tess, challenges Victorian standards by maintaining her innate purity and refusing to be defined by society even after committing acts that ought to both taint and…

When it comes to works of fiction, it is always most interesting to see where the author draws inspiration for the major characters from and what the underlying message of the story at hand. Disillusioned from faith as a child, C. S. Lewis would find himself re-embracing Christianity in his adult life, which likely played…

In Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, the “death” of Hermione catalyzes the narrative development. Quantitatively, she plays little role beyond the first three acts, but the play revolves and eventually unites around her. It is, initially, her perceived flirting with Polixenes that begins Leontes’s jealous rage and sets into motion the play’s main chain of events. Hermione’s…

Critical responses to Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” an installment in the Sherlock Holmes series, have been dramatically varied. While some hail it as a work of feminist fiction ahead of its time, others condemn it as one of many examples of Doyle’s inability to write a rounded female character. Irene…

In the forward to Our Town, Donald Margulies argues that Thornton Wilder’s play is still representative of the “microcosm of the human family, genus American” (Marguiles xvii). Margulies statement about the plausible modern application of Our Town is readily seen through the three acts with Wilder’s themes of ritual and time. The enduring notions of…

Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectation is recognized as one of the most important examples of bildungsroman, that is, a “novel of personal development or education” of its main character (Rau). In this novel, using a first-person narrative, Dickens tells the story of Pip and how he evolves from being an almost illiterate child who lives…

Biddy is introduced early in Great Expectations and is mentioned regularly throughout, though she is not one of the major characters. She does, however, serve as a constant reminder to Pip of what he is leaving behind and, as she is more of a peer of Pips because of her intellect and age, she allows…

In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Milkman’s progression from an immature teenager to an adult possessing moral rectitude is displayed through encounters where Milkman learns about and pursues knowledge about his past. We first meet Milkman as a young man who goes about life without a specific sense of direction, but as he grows older…

Within Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Joe Gargery is presented as the epitome of human compassion and kindness, the moral center of the novel. He is a strange mixture of wisdom, stupidity and generosity, being the most human of all the characters with his strengths and weaknesses, which the readers grasp by reading between the lines…

In Henrik Ibsen’s famous yet controversial play The Wild Duck, most of the significant events are mental and psychological. Specifically, it is the subconscious thoughts of Hjalmar Ekdal that construct the play. As the protagonist of the play, Hjalmar Ekdal is seemingly living a lie. He does not know about his wife’s affair along with…