ROBINSON CRUSOE

Daniel Defoe

Analysis of Major Characters

Robinson Crusoe
While he is no flashy hero or grand epic adventurer, Robinson Crusoe displays character traits that have won
him the approval of generations of readers. His perseverance in spending months making a canoe, and in
practicing pottery making until he gets it right, is praiseworthy. Additionally, his resourcefulness in building
a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable from practically nothing is clearly remarkable.
The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau applauded Crusoes do-it-yourself independence, and in his
book on education, Emile, he recommends that children be taught to imitate Crusoes hands-on approach to
life. Crusoes business instincts are just as considerable as his survival instincts: he manages to make a
fortune in Brazil despite a twenty-eight-year absence and even leaves his island with a nice collection of
gold. Moreover, Crusoe is never interested in portraying himself as a hero in his own narration. He does not
boast of his courage in quelling the mutiny, and he is always ready to admit unheroic feelings of fear or
panic, as when he finds the footprint on the beach. Crusoe prefers to depict himself as an ordinary sensible
man, never as an exceptional hero.
But Crusoes admirable qualities must be weighed against the flaws in his character. Crusoe seems incapable
of deep feelings, as shown by his cold account of leaving his familyhe worries about the religious
consequences of disobeying his father, but never displays any emotion about leaving. Though he is generous
toward people, as when he gives gifts to his sisters and the captain, Crusoe reveals very little tender or
sincere affection in his dealings with them. When Crusoe tells us that he has gotten married and that his wife
has died all within the same sentence, his indifference to her seems almost cruel. Moreover, as an individual
personality, Crusoe is rather dull. His precise and deadpan style of narration works well for recounting the
process of canoe building, but it tends to drain the excitement from events that should be thrilling. Actionpacked scenes like the conquest of the cannibals become quite humdrum when Crusoe narrates them, giving
us a detailed inventory of the cannibals in list form, for example. His insistence on dating events makes
sense to a point, but it ultimately ends up seeming obsessive and irrelevant when he tells us the date on
which he grinds his tools but neglects to tell us the date of a very important event like meeting Friday.
Perhaps his impulse to record facts carefully is not a survival skill, but an irritating sign of his neurosis.
Finally, while not boasting of heroism, Crusoe is nonetheless very interested in possessions, power, and
prestige. When he first calls himself king of the island it seems jocund, but when he describes the Spaniard
as his subject we must take his royal delusion seriously, since it seems he really does consider himself king.
His teaching Friday to call him Master, even before teaching him the words for yes or no, seems
obnoxious even under the racist standards of the day, as if Crusoe needs to hear the ego-boosting word
spoken as soon as possible. Overall, Crusoes virtues tend to be private: his industry, resourcefulness, and
solitary courage make him an exemplary individual. But his vices are social, and his urge to subjugate others
is highly objectionable. In bringing both sides together into one complex character, Defoe gives us a
fascinating glimpse into the successes, failures, and contradictions of modern man.
Friday

Probably the first nonwhite character to be given a realistic, individualized, and humane portrayal in the
English novel, Friday has a huge literary and cultural importance. If Crusoe represents the first colonial
mind in fiction, then Friday represents not just a Caribbean tribesman, but all the natives of America, Asia,
and Africa who would later be oppressed in the age of European imperialism. At the moment when Crusoe
teaches Friday to call him Master Friday becomes an enduring political symbol of racial injustice in a
modern world critical of imperialist expansion. Recent rewritings of the Crusoe story, like J. M.
Coetzees Foe and Michel Tourniers Friday,emphasize the sad consequences of Crusoes failure to
understand Friday and suggest how the tale might be told very differently from the natives perspective.
Aside from his importance to our culture, Friday is a key figure within the context of the novel. In many
ways he is the most vibrant character in Robinson Crusoe, much more charismatic and colorful than his
master. Indeed, Defoe at times underscores the contrast between Crusoes and Fridays personalities, as
when Friday, in his joyful reunion with his father, exhibits far more emotion toward his family than Crusoe.
Whereas Crusoe never mentions missing his family or dreams about the happiness of seeing them again,
Friday jumps and sings for joy when he meets his father, and this emotional display makes us see what is
missing from Crusoes stodgy heart. Fridays expression of loyalty in asking Crusoe to kill him rather than
leave him is more heartfelt than anything Crusoe ever says or does. Fridays sincere questions to Crusoe
about the devil, which Crusoe answers only indirectly and hesitantly, leave us wondering whether Crusoes
knowledge of Christianity is superficial and sketchy in contrast to Fridays full understanding of his own god
Benamuckee. In short, Fridays exuberance and emotional directness often point out the wooden
conventionality of Crusoes personality.
Despite Fridays subjugation, however, Crusoe appreciates Friday much more than he would a mere servant.
Crusoe does not seem to value intimacy with humans much, but he does say that he loves Friday, which is a
remarkable disclosure. It is the only time Crusoe makes such an admission in the novel, since he never
expresses love for his parents, brothers, sisters, or even his wife. The mere fact that an Englishman confesses
more love for an illiterate Caribbean ex-cannibal than for his own family suggests the appeal of Fridays
personality. Crusoe may bring Friday Christianity and clothing, but Friday brings Crusoe emotional warmth
and a vitality of spirit that Crusoes own European heart lacks.
The Portuguese Captain
The Portuguese captain is presented more fully than any other European in the novel besides Crusoe, more
vividly portrayed than Crusoes widow friend or his family members. He appears in the narrative at two very
important junctures in Crusoes life. First, it is the Portuguese captain who picks up Crusoe after the escape
from the Moors and takes him to Brazil, where Crusoe establishes himself as a plantation owner. Twentyeight years later, it is again the Portuguese captain who informs Crusoe that his Brazilian investments are
secure, and who arranges the sale of the plantation and the forwarding of the proceeds to Crusoe. In both
cases, the Portuguese captain is the agent of Crusoes extreme good fortune. In this sense, he represents the
benefits of social connections. If the captain had not been located in Lisbon, Crusoe never would have
cashed in on his Brazilian holdings. This assistance from social contacts contradicts the theme of solitary
enterprise that the novel seems to endorse. Despite Crusoes hard individual labor on the island, it is
actually another human beingand not his own resourcefulnessthat makes Crusoe wealthy in the end. Yet
it is doubtful whether this insight occurs to Crusoe, despite his obvious gratitude toward the captain.
Moreover, the Portuguese captain is associated with a wide array of virtues. He is honest, informing Crusoe
of the money he has borrowed against Crusoes investments, and repaying a part of it immediately even
though it is financially difficult for him to do so. He is loyal, honoring his duties toward Crusoe even after
twenty-eight years. Finally, he is extremely generous, paying Crusoe more than market value for the animal
skins and slave boy after picking Crusoe up at sea, and giving Crusoe handsome gifts when leaving Brazil.

All these virtues make the captain a paragon of human excellence, and they make us wonder why Defoe
includes such a character in the novel. In some ways, the captains goodness makes him the moral
counterpart of Friday, since the European seaman and the Caribbean cannibal mirror each other in
benevolence and devotion to Crusoe. The captains goodness thus makes it impossible for us to make
oversimplified oppositions between a morally bankrupt Europe on the one hand, and innocent noble savages
on the other.
GULLIVERS TRAVELS
Jonathan Swift

Analysis of Major Characters

Lemuel Gulliver
Although Gulliver is a bold adventurer who visits a multitude of strange lands, it is difficult to regard him as
truly heroic. Even well before his slide into misanthropy at the end of the book, he simply does not show the
stuff of which grand heroes are made. He is not cowardlyon the contrary, he undergoes the unnerving
experiences of nearly being devoured by a giant rat, taken captive by pirates, shipwrecked on faraway
shores, sexually assaulted by an eleven-year-old girl, and shot in the face with poison arrows. Additionally,
the isolation from humanity that he endures for sixteen years must be hard to bear, though Gulliver rarely
talks about such matters. Yet despite the courage Gulliver shows throughout his voyages, his character lacks
basic greatness. This impression could be due to the fact that he rarely shows his feelings, reveals his soul,
or experiences great passions of any sort. But other literary adventurers, like Odysseus in
Homers Odyssey, seem heroic without being particularly open about their emotions.
What seems most lacking in Gulliver is not courage or feelings, but drive. One modern critic has described
Gulliver as possessing the smallest will in all of Western literature: he is simply devoid of a sense of
mission, a goal that would make his wandering into a quest. Odysseuss goal is to get home again, Aeneass
goal in VirgilsAeneid is to found Rome, but Gullivers goal on his sea voyage is uncertain. He says that he
needs to make some money after the failure of his business, but he rarely mentions finances throughout the
work and indeed almost never even mentions home. He has no awareness of any greatness in what he is
doing or what he is working toward. In short, he has no aspirations. When he leaves home on his travels for
the first time, he gives no impression that he regards himself as undertaking a great endeavor or embarking
on a thrilling new challenge.
We may also note Gullivers lack of ingenuity and savvy. Other great travelers, such as Odysseus, get
themselves out of dangerous situations by exercising their wit and ability to trick others. Gulliver seems too
dull for any battles of wit and too unimaginative to think up tricks, and thus he ends up being passive in
most of the situations in which he finds himself. He is held captive several times throughout his voyages, but
he is never once released through his own stratagems, relying instead on chance factors for his liberation.
Once presented with a way out, he works hard to escape, as when he repairs the boat he finds that delivers
him from Blefuscu, but he is never actively ingenious in attaining freedom. This example summarizes quite
well Gullivers intelligence, which is factual and practical rather than imaginative or introspective.
Gulliver is gullible, as his name suggests. For example, he misses the obvious ways in which the Lilliputians
exploit him. While he is quite adept at navigational calculations and the humdrum details of seafaring, he is
far less able to reflect on himself or his nation in any profoundly critical way. Traveling to such different

countries and returning to England in between each voyage, he seems poised to make some great
anthropological speculations about cultural differences around the world, about how societies are similar
despite their variations or different despite their similarities. But, frustratingly, Gulliver gives us nothing of
the sort. He provides us only with literal facts and narrative events, never with any generalizing or
philosophizing. He is a self-hating, self-proclaimed Yahoo at the end, announcing his misanthropy quite
loudly, but even this attitude is difficult to accept as the moral of the story. Gulliver is not a figure with
whom we identify but, rather, part of the array of personalities and behaviors about which we must make
judgments.
The Queen of Brobdingnag
The Brobdingnagian queen is hardly a well-developed character in this novel, but she is important in one
sense: she is one of the very few females in Gullivers Travels who is given much notice. Gullivers own
wife is scarcely even mentioned, even at what one would expect to be the touching moment of homecoming
at the end of the fourth voyage. Gulliver seems little more than indifferent to his wife. The farmers daughter
in Brobdingnag wins some of Gullivers attention but chiefly because she cares for him so tenderly. Gulliver
is courteous to the empress of Lilliput but presumably mainly because she is royalty. The queen of
Brobdingnag, however, arouses some deeper feelings in Gulliver that go beyond her royal status. He
compliments her effusively, as he does no other female personage in the work, calling her infinitely witty
and humorous. He describes in proud detail the manner in which he is permitted to kiss the tip of her little
finger. For her part, the queen seems earnest in her concern about Gullivers welfare. When her court dwarf
insults him, she gives the dwarf away to another household as punishment. The interaction between Gulliver
and the queen hints that Gulliver is indeed capable of emotional connections.
Lord Munodi
Lord Munodi is a minor character, but he plays the important role of showing the possibility of individual
dissent within a brainwashed community. While the inhabitants of Lagado pursue their attempts to extract
sunbeams from cucumbers and to eliminate all verbs and adjectives from their language, Munodi is a rare
example of practical intelligence. Having tried unsuccessfully to convince his fellows of their misguided
public policies, he has given up and is content to practice what he preaches on his own estates. In his
kindness to strangers, Munodi is also a counterexample to the contemptuous treatment that the other
Laputians and Lagadans show Gulliver. He takes his guest on a tour of the kingdom, explains the advantages
of his own estates without boasting, and is, in general, a figure of great common sense and humanity amid
theoretical delusions and impractical fantasizing. As a figure isolated from his community, Munodi is similar
to Gulliver, though Gulliver is unaware of his alienation while Munodi suffers acutely from his. Indeed, in
Munodi we glimpse what Gulliver could be if he were wiser: a figure able to think critically about life and
society.
Don Pedro de Mendez
Don Pedro is a minor character in terms of plot, but he plays an important symbolic role at the end of the
novel. He treats the half-deranged Gulliver with great patience, even tenderness, when he allows him to
travel on his ship as far as Lisbon, offering to give him his own finest suit of clothes to replace the seamans
tatters, and giving him twenty pounds for his journey home to England. Don Pedro never judges Gulliver,
despite Gullivers abominably antisocial behavior on the trip back. Ironically, though Don Pedro shows the
same kind of generosity and understanding that Gullivers Houyhnhnm master earlier shows him, Gulliver
still considers Don Pedro a repulsive Yahoo. Were Gulliver able to escape his own delusions, he might be
able to see the Houyhnhnm-like reasonableness and kindness in Don Pedros behavior. Don Pedro is thus the

touchstone through which we see that Gulliver is no longer a reliable and objective commentator on the
reality he sees but, rather, a skewed observer of a reality colored by private delusions.
Mary Burton Gulliver
Gullivers wife is mentioned only briefly at the beginning of the novel and appears only for an instant at the
conclusion. Gulliver never thinks about Mary on his travels and never feels guilty about his lack of attention
to her. A dozen far more trivial characters get much greater attention than she receives. She is, in this
respect, the opposite of Odysseuss wife Penelope in the Odyssey, who is never far from her husbands
thoughts and is the final destination of his journey. Marys neglected presence in Gullivers narrative gives
her a certain claim to importance. It suggests that despite Gullivers curiosity about new lands and exotic
races, he is virtually indifferent to those people closest to him. His lack of interest in his wife bespeaks his
underdeveloped inner life. Gulliver is a man of skill and knowledge in certain practical matters, but he is
disadvantaged in self-reflection, personal interactions, and perhaps overall wisdom.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Jane Austen

Analysis of Major Characters

Elizabeth Bennet
The second daughter in the Bennet family, and the most intelligent and quick-witted, Elizabeth is the
protagonist of Pride and Prejudiceand one of the most well-known female characters in English literature.
Her admirable qualities are numerousshe is lovely, clever, and, in a novel defined by dialogue, she
converses as brilliantly as anyone. Her honesty, virtue, and lively wit enable her to rise above the nonsense
and bad behavior that pervade her class-bound and often spiteful society. Nevertheless, her sharp tongue and
tendency to make hasty judgments often lead her astray; Pride and Prejudice is essentially the story of how
she (and her true love, Darcy) overcome all obstaclesincluding their own personal failingsto find
romantic happiness. Elizabeth must not only cope with a hopeless mother, a distant father, two badly
behaved younger siblings, and several snobbish, antagonizing females, she must also overcome her own
mistaken impressions of Darcy, which initially lead her to reject his proposals of marriage. Her charms are
sufficient to keep him interested, fortunately, while she navigates familial and social turmoil. As she
gradually comes to recognize the nobility of Darcys character, she realizes the error of her initial prejudice
against him.
Fitzwilliam Darcy
The son of a wealthy, well-established family and the master of the great estate of Pemberley, Darcy is
Elizabeths male counterpart. The narrator relates Elizabeths point of view of events more often than
Darcys, so Elizabeth often seems a more sympathetic figure. The reader eventually realizes, however, that
Darcy is her ideal match. Intelligent and forthright, he too has a tendency to judge too hastily and harshly,
and his high birth and wealth make him overly proud and overly conscious of his social status. Indeed, his
haughtiness makes him initially bungle his courtship. When he proposes to her, for instance, he dwells more
on how unsuitable a match she is than on her charms, beauty, or anything else complimentary. Her rejection
of his advances builds a kind of humility in him. Darcy demonstrates his continued devotion to Elizabeth, in
spite of his distaste for her low connections, when he rescues Lydia and the entire Bennet family from

disgrace, and when he goes against the wishes of his haughty aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by continuing
to pursue Elizabeth. Darcy proves himself worthy of Elizabeth, and she ends up repenting her earlier, overly
harsh judgment of him.
Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley
Elizabeths beautiful elder sister and Darcys wealthy best friend, Jane and Bingley engage in a courtship
that occupies a central place in the novel. They first meet at the ball in Meryton and enjoy an immediate
mutual attraction. They are spoken of as a potential couple throughout the book, long before anyone
imagines that Darcy and Elizabeth might marry. Despite their centrality to the narrative, they are vague
characters, sketched by Austen rather than carefully drawn. Indeed, they are so similar in nature and
behavior that they can be described together: both are cheerful, friendly, and good-natured, always ready to
think the best of others; they lack entirely the prickly egotism of Elizabeth and Darcy. Janes gentle spirit
serves as a foil for her sisters fiery, contentious nature, while Bingleys eager friendliness contrasts with
Darcys stiff pride. Their principal characteristics are goodwill and compatibility, and the contrast of their
romance with that of Darcy and Elizabeth is remarkable. Jane and Bingley exhibit to the reader true love
unhampered by either pride or prejudice, though in their simple goodness, they also demonstrate that such a
love is mildly dull.
Mr. Bennet
Mr. Bennet is the patriarch of the Bennet householdthe husband of Mrs. Bennet and the father of Jane,
Elizabeth, Lydia, Kitty, and Mary. He is a man driven to exasperation by his ridiculous wife and difficult
daughters. He reacts by withdrawing from his family and assuming a detached attitude punctuated by bursts
of sarcastic humor. He is closest to Elizabeth because they are the two most intelligent Bennets. Initially, his
dry wit and self-possession in the face of his wifes hysteria make him a sympathetic figure, but, though he
remains likable throughout, the reader gradually loses respect for him as it becomes clear that the price of
his detachment is considerable. Detached from his family, he is a weak father and, at critical moments, fails
his family. In particular, his foolish indulgence of Lydias immature behavior nearly leads to general
disgrace when she elopes with Wickham. Further, upon her disappearance, he proves largely ineffective. It is
left to Mr. Gardiner and Darcy to track Lydia down and rectify the situation. Ultimately, Mr. Bennet would
rather withdraw from the world than cope with it.
Mrs. Bennet
Mrs. Bennet is a miraculously tiresome character. Noisy and foolish, she is a woman consumed by the desire
to see her daughters married and seems to care for nothing else in the world. Ironically, her single-minded
pursuit of this goal tends to backfire, as her lack of social graces alienates the very people (Darcy and
Bingley) whom she tries desperately to attract. Austen uses her continually to highlight the necessity of
marriage for young women. Mrs. Bennet also serves as a middle-class counterpoint to such upper-class
snobs as Lady Catherine and Miss Bingley, demonstrating that foolishness can be found at every level of
society. In the end, however, Mrs. Bennet proves such an unattractive figure, lacking redeeming
characteristics of any kind, that some readers have accused Austen of unfairness in portraying heras if
Austen, like Mr. Bennet, took perverse pleasure in poking fun at a woman already scorned as a result of her
ill breeding.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Charles Dickens


Analysis of Major Characters

Pip
As a bildungsroman, Great Expectations presents the growth and development of a single character, Philip
Pirrip, better known to himself and to the world as Pip. As the focus of the bildungsroman, Pip is by far the
most important character in Great Expectations: he is both the protagonist, whose actions make up the main
plot of the novel, and the narrator, whose thoughts and attitudes shape the readers perception of the story.
As a result, developing an understanding of Pips character is perhaps the most important step in
understanding Great Expectations.
Because Pip is narrating his story many years after the events of the novel take place, there are really two
Pips in Great Expectations: Pip the narrator and Pip the characterthe voice telling the story and the person
acting it out. Dickens takes great care to distinguish the two Pips, imbuing the voice of Pip the narrator with
perspective and maturity while also imparting how Pip the character feels about what is happening to him as
it actually happens. This skillfully executed distinction is perhaps best observed early in the book, when Pip
the character is a child; here, Pip the narrator gently pokes fun at his younger self, but also enables us to see
and feel the story through his eyes.
As a character, Pips two most important traits are his immature, romantic idealism and his innately good
conscience. On the one hand, Pip has a deep desire to improve himself and attain any possible advancement,
whether educational, moral, or social. His longing to marry Estella and join the upper classes stems from the
same idealistic desire as his longing to learn to read and his fear of being punished for bad behavior: once he
understands ideas like poverty, ignorance, and immorality, Pip does not want to be poor, ignorant, or
immoral. Pip the narrator judges his own past actions extremely harshly, rarely giving himself credit for
good deeds but angrily castigating himself for bad ones. As a character, however, Pips idealism often leads
him to perceive the world rather narrowly, and his tendency to oversimplify situations based on superficial
values leads him to behave badly toward the people who care about him. When Pip becomes a gentleman,
for example, he immediately begins to act as he thinks a gentleman is supposed to act, which leads him to
treat Joe and Biddy snobbishly and coldly.
On the other hand, Pip is at heart a very generous and sympathetic young man, a fact that can be witnessed
in his numerous acts of kindness throughout the book (helping Magwitch, secretly buying Herberts way into
business, etc.) and his essential love for all those who love him. Pips main line of development in the novel
may be seen as the process of learning to place his innate sense of kindness and conscience above his
immature idealism.

Not long after meeting Miss Havisham and Estella, Pips desire for advancement largely overshadows his
basic goodness. After receiving his mysterious fortune, his idealistic wishes seem to have been justified, and
he gives himself over to a gentlemanly life of idleness. But the discovery that the wretched Magwitch, not
the wealthy Miss Havisham, is his secret benefactor shatters Pips oversimplified sense of his worlds
hierarchy. The fact that he comes to admire Magwitch while losing Estella to the brutish nobleman Drummle
ultimately forces him to realize that ones social position is not the most important quality one possesses,
and that his behavior as a gentleman has caused him to hurt the people who care about him most. Once he
has learned these lessons, Pip matures into the man who narrates the novel, completing the bildungsroman.
Estella
Often cited as Dickenss first convincing female character, Estella is a supremely ironic creation, one who
darkly undermines the notion of romantic love and serves as a bitter criticism against the class system in
which she is mired. Raised from the age of three by Miss Havisham to torment men and break their hearts,
Estella wins Pips deepest love by practicing deliberate cruelty. Unlike the warm, winsome, kind heroine of
a traditional love story, Estella is cold, cynical, and manipulative. Though she represents Pips first longedfor ideal of life among the upper classes, Estella is actually even lower-born than Pip; as Pip learns near the
end of the novel, she is the daughter of Magwitch, the coarse convict, and thus springs from the very lowest
level of society.
Ironically, life among the upper classes does not represent salvation for Estella. Instead, she is victimized
twice by her adopted class. Rather than being raised by Magwitch, a man of great inner nobility, she is raised
by Miss Havisham, who destroys her ability to express emotion and interact normally with the world. And
rather than marrying the kindhearted commoner Pip, Estella marries the cruel nobleman Drummle, who
treats her harshly and makes her life miserable for many years. In this way, Dickens uses Estellas life to
reinforce the idea that ones happiness and well-being are not deeply connected to ones social position: had
Estella been poor, she might have been substantially better off.
Despite her cold behavior and the damaging influences in her life, Dickens nevertheless ensures that Estella
is still a sympathetic character. By giving the reader a sense of her inner struggle to discover and act on her
own feelings rather than on the imposed motives of her upbringing, Dickens gives the reader a glimpse of
Estellas inner life, which helps to explain what Pip might love about her. Estella does not seem able to stop
herself from hurting Pip, but she also seems not to want to hurt him; she repeatedly warns him that she has
no heart and seems to urge him as strongly as she can to find happiness by leaving her behind. Finally,
Estellas long, painful marriage to Drummle causes her to develop along the same lines as Pipthat is, she
learns, through experience, to rely on and trust her inner feelings. In the final scene of the novel, she has
become her own woman for the first time in the book. As she says to Pip, Suffering has been stronger than
all other teaching. . . . I have been bent and broken, butI hopeinto a better shape.

Miss Havisham
The mad, vengeful Miss Havisham, a wealthy dowager who lives in a rotting mansion and wears an old
wedding dress every day of her life, is not exactly a believable character, but she is certainly one of the most
memorable creations in the book. Miss Havishams life is defined by a single tragic event: her jilting by
Compeyson on what was to have been their wedding day. From that moment forth, Miss Havisham is
determined never to move beyond her heartbreak. She stops all the clocks in Satis House at twenty minutes
to nine, the moment when she first learned that Compeyson was gone, and she wears only one shoe, because
when she learned of his betrayal, she had not yet put on the other shoe. With a kind of manic, obsessive
cruelty, Miss Havisham adopts Estella and raises her as a weapon to achieve her own revenge on men. Miss
Havisham is an example of single-minded vengeance pursued destructively: both Miss Havisham and the
people in her life suffer greatly because of her quest for revenge. Miss Havisham is completely unable to see
that her actions are hurtful to Pip and Estella. She is redeemed at the end of the novel when she realizes that
she has caused Pips heart to be broken in the same manner as her own; rather than achieving any kind of
personal revenge, she has only caused more pain. Miss Havisham immediately begs Pip for forgiveness,
reinforcing the novels theme that bad behavior can be redeemed by contrition and sympathy.
DAVID COPPERFIELD
Charles Dickens

Analysis of Major Characters

David Copperfield
Although David narrates his story as an adult, he relays the impressions he had from a youthful point of
view. We see how Davids perception of the world deepens as he comes of age. We see Davids initial
innocence in the contrast between his interpretation of events and our own understanding of them. Although
David is ignorant of Steerforths treachery, we are aware from the moment we meet Steerforth that he
doesnt deserve the adulation David feels toward him. David doesnt understand why he hates Uriah or why
he trusts a boy with a donkey cart who steals his money and leaves him in the road, but we can sense Uriahs
devious nature and the boys treacherous intentions. In Davids first-person narration, Dickens conveys the
wisdom of the older man implicitly, through the eyes of a child.
Davids complex character allows for contradiction and development over the course of the novel. Though
David is trusting and kind, he also has moments of cruelty, like the scene in which he intentionally distresses
Mr. Dick by explaining Miss Betseys dire situation to him. David also displays great tenderness, as in the
moment when he realizes his love for Agnes for the first time. David, especially as a young man in love, can
be foolish and romantic. As he grows up, however, he develops a more mature point of view and searches
for a lover who will challenge him and help him grow. David fully matures as an adult when he expresses
the sentiment that he values Agness calm tranquility over all else in his life.
Uriah Heep

Uriah serves a foil to David and contrasts Davids qualities of innocence and compassion with his own
corruption. Though Uriah is raised in a cruel environment similar to Davids, Uriahs upbringing causes him
to become bitter and vengeful rather than honest and hopeful. Dickenss physical description of Uriah marks
Uriah as a demonic character. He refers to Uriahs movements as snakelike and gives Uriah red hair and red
eyes. Uriah and David not only have opposing characteristics but also operate at cross-purposes. For
example, whereas Uriah wishes to marry Agnes only in order to hurt David, Davids marriages are both
motivated by love. The frequent contrast between Uriahs and Davids sentiments emphasizes Davids
kindness and moral integrity.
While Davids character development is a process of increased self-understanding, Uriah grows in his desire
to exercise control over himself and other characters. As Uriah gains more power over Mr. Wickfield, his
sense of entitlement grows and he becomes more and more power-hungry. The final scenes of the novel, in
which Uriah praises his jail cell because it helps him know what he should do, show Uriahs need to exert
control even when he is a helpless prisoner. But imprisonment does not redeem his evilif anything, it
compounds his flaws. To the end, Uriah plots strategies to increase his control. Because he deploys his
strategies to selfish purposes that bring harm to others, he stands out as the novels greatest villain.
James Steerforth
Steerforth is a slick, egotistical, wealthy young man whose sense of self-importance overwhelms all his
opinions. Steerforth underscores the difference between what we understand as readers and what David sees
and fails to seein his youthful navet. David takes Steerforths kindness for granted without analyzing
his motives or detecting his duplicity. When Steerforth befriends David at Salem House, David doesnt
suspect that Steerforth is simply trying to use David to make friends and gain status. Though Steerforth
belittles David from the moment they meet, David is incapable of conceiving that his new friend might be
taking advantage of him. Because Steerforths duplicity is so clear to us, Davids lack of insight into
Steerforths true intentions emphasizes his youthful innocence. Steerforth likes David only because David
worships him, and his final betrayal comes as a surprise to David but not to us.
TESS OF THE DURBERVILLES
Thomas Hardy

Analysis of Major Characters

Tess Durbeyfield
Intelligent, strikingly attractive, and distinguished by her deep moral sensitivity and passionate intensity,
Tess is indisputably the central character of the novel that bears her name. But she is also more than a
distinctive individual: Hardy makes her into somewhat of a mythic heroine. Her name, formally Theresa,
recalls St. Teresa of Avila, another martyr whose vision of a higher reality cost her her life. Other characters
often refer to Tess in mythical terms, as when Angel calls her a Daughter of Nature in Chapter XVIII, or
refers to her by the Greek mythological names Artemis and Demeter in Chapter XX. The narrator
himself sometimes describes Tess as more than an individual woman, but as something closer to a mythical
incarnation of womanhood. In Chapter XIV, he says that her eyes are neither black nor blue nor grey nor
violet; rather all these shades together, like an almost standard woman. Tesss story may thus be a
standard story, representing a deeper and larger experience than that of a single individual.

In part, Tess represents the changing role of the agricultural workers in England in the late nineteenth
century. Possessing an education that her unschooled parents lack, since she has passed the Sixth Standard of
the National Schools, Tess does not quite fit into the folk culture of her predecessors, but financial
constraints keep her from rising to a higher station in life. She belongs in that higher world, however, as we
discover on the first page of the novel with the news that the Durbeyfields are the surviving members of the
noble and ancient family of the dUrbervilles. There is aristocracy in Tesss blood, visible in her graceful
beautyyet she is forced to work as a farmhand and milkmaid. When she tries to express her joy by singing
lower-class folk ballads at the beginning of the third part of the novel, they do not satisfy hershe seems
not quite comfortable with those popular songs. But, on the other hand, her diction, while more polished
than her mothers, is not quite up to the level of Alecs or Angels. She is in between, both socially and
culturally. Thus, Tess is a symbol of unclear and unstable notions of class in nineteenth-century Britain,
where old family lines retained their earlier glamour, but where cold economic realities made sheer wealth
more important than inner nobility.
Beyond her social symbolism, Tess represents fallen humanity in a religious sense, as the frequent biblical
allusions in the novel remind us. Just as Tesss clan was once glorious and powerful but is now sadly
diminished, so too did the early glory of the first humans, Adam and Eve, fade with their expulsion from
Eden, making humans sad shadows of what they once were. Tess thus represents what is known in Christian
theology as original sin, the degraded state in which all humans live, even whenlike Tess herself after
killing Prince or succumbing to Alecthey are not wholly or directly responsible for the sins for which they
are punished. This torment represents the most universal side of Tess: she is the myth of the human who
suffers for crimes that are not her own and lives a life more degraded than she deserves.
Alec dUrberville
An insouciant twenty-four-year-old man, heir to a fortune, and bearer of a name that his father purchased,
Alec is the nemesis and downfall of Tesss life. His first name, Alexander, suggests the conqueroras in
Alexander the Greatwho seizes what he wants regardless of moral propriety. Yet he is more slippery than
a grand conqueror. His full last name, Stoke-dUrberville, symbolizes the split character of his family, whose
origins are simpler than their pretensions to grandeur. After all, Stokes is a blunt and inelegant name. Indeed,
the divided and duplicitous character of Alec is evident to the very end of the novel, when he quickly
abandons his newfound Christian faith upon remeeting Tess. It is hard to believe Alec holds his religion, or
anything else, sincerely. His supposed conversion may only be a new role he is playing.
This duplicity of character is so intense in Alec, and its consequences for Tess so severe, that he becomes
diabolical. The first part of his surname conjures associations with fiery energies, as in the stoking of a
furnace or the flames of hell. His devilish associations are evident when he wields a pitchfork while
addressing Tess early in the novel, and when he seduces her as the serpent in Genesis seduced Eve.
Additionally, like the famous depiction of Satan in Miltons Paradise Lost, Alec does not try to hide his bad
qualities. In fact, like Satan, he revels in them. In Chapter XII, he bluntly tells Tess, I suppose I am a bad
fellowa damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad, in all probability.
There is frank acceptance in this admission and no shame. Some readers feel Alec is too wicked to be
believable, but, like Tess herself, he represents a larger moral principle rather than a real individual man.
Like Satan, Alec symbolizes the base forces of life that drive a person away from moral perfection and
greatness.
Angel Clare
A freethinking son born into the family of a provincial parson and determined to set himself up as a farmer
instead of going to Cambridge like his conformist brothers, Angel represents a rebellious striving toward a

personal vision of goodness. He is a secularist who yearns to work for the honor and glory of man, as he
tells his father in Chapter XVIII, rather than for the honor and glory of God in a more distant world. A
typical young nineteenth-century progressive, Angel sees human society as a thing to be remolded and
improved, and he fervently believes in the nobility of man. He rejects the values handed to him, and sets off
in search of his own. His love for Tess, a mere milkmaid and his social inferior, is one expression of his
disdain for tradition. This independent spirit contributes to his aura of charisma and general attractiveness
that makes him the love object of all the milkmaids with whom he works at Talbothays.
As his namein French, close to Bright Angelsuggests, Angel is not quite of this world, but floats
above it in a transcendent sphere of his own. The narrator says that Angel shines rather than burns and that
he is closer to the intellectually aloof poet Shelley than to the fleshly and passionate poet Byron. His love for
Tess may be abstract, as we guess when he calls her Daughter of Nature or Demeter. Tess may be more
an archetype or ideal to him than a flesh and blood woman with a complicated life. Angels ideals of human
purity are too elevated to be applied to actual people: Mrs. Durbeyfields easygoing moral beliefs are much
more easily accommodated to real lives such as Tesss. Angel awakens to the actual complexities of realworld morality after his failure in Brazil, and only then he realizes he has been unfair to Tess. His moral
system is readjusted as he is brought down to Earth. Ironically, it is not the angel who guides the human in
this novel, but the human who instructs the angel, although at the cost of her own life.
THE SCARLET LETTER
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Analysis of Major Characters

Hester Prynne
Although The Scarlet Letter is about Hester Prynne, the book is not so much a consideration of her innate
character as it is an examination of the forces that shape her and the transformations those forces effect. We
know very little about Hester prior to her affair with Dimmesdale and her resultant public shaming. We read
that she married Chillingworth although she did not love him, but we never fully understand why. The early
chapters of the book suggest that, prior to her marriage, Hester was a strong-willed and impetuous young
womanshe remembers her parents as loving guides who frequently had to restrain her incautious behavior.
The fact that she has an affair also suggests that she once had a passionate nature.
But it is what happens after Hesters affair that makes her into the woman with whom the reader is familiar.
Shamed and alienated from the rest of the community, Hester becomes contemplative. She speculates on
human nature, social organization, and larger moral questions. Hesters tribulations also lead her to be stoic
and a freethinker. Although the narrator pretends to disapprove of Hesters independent philosophizing, his
tone indicates that he secretly admires her independence and her ideas.
Hester also becomes a kind of compassionate maternal figure as a result of her experiences. Hester
moderates her tendency to be rash, for she knows that such behavior could cause her to lose her daughter,
Pearl. Hester is also maternal with respect to society: she cares for the poor and brings them food and
clothing. By the novels end, Hester has become a protofeminist mother figure to the women of the
community. The shame attached to her scarlet letter is long gone. Women recognize that her punishment
stemmed in part from the town fathers sexism, and they come to Hester seeking shelter from the sexist
forces under which they themselves suffer. Throughout The Scarlet Letter Hester is portrayed as an

intelligent, capable, but not necessarily extraordinary woman. It is the extraordinary circumstances shaping
her that make her such an important figure.
Roger Chillingworth
As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth is a man deficient in human warmth. His twisted, stooped,
deformed shoulders mirror his distorted soul. From what the reader is told of his early years with Hester, he
was a difficult husband. He ignored his wife for much of the time, yet expected her to nourish his soul with
affection when he did condescend to spend time with her. Chillingworths decision to assume the identity of
a leech, or doctor, is fitting. Unable to engage in equitable relationships with those around him, he feeds
on the vitality of others as a way of energizing his own projects. Chillingworths death is a result of the
nature of his character. After Dimmesdale dies, Chillingworth no longer has a victim. Similarly,
Dimmesdales revelation that he is Pearls father removes Hester from the old mans clutches. Having lost
the objects of his revenge, the leech has no choice but to die.
Ultimately, Chillingworth represents true evil. He is associated with secular and sometimes illicit forms of
knowledge, as his chemical experiments and medical practices occasionally verge on witchcraft and murder.
He is interested in revenge, not justice, and he seeks the deliberate destruction of others rather than a redress
of wrongs. His desire to hurt others stands in contrast to Hester and Dimmesdales sin, which had love, not
hate, as its intent. Any harm that may have come from the young lovers deed was unanticipated and
inadvertent, whereas Chillingworth reaps deliberate harm.
Arthur Dimmesdale
Arthur Dimmesdale, like Hester Prynne, is an individual whose identity owes more to external
circumstances than to his innate nature. The reader is told that Dimmesdale was a scholar of some renown at
Oxford University. His past suggests that he is probably somewhat aloof, the kind of man who would not
have much natural sympathy for ordinary men and women. However, Dimmesdale has an unusually active
conscience. The fact that Hester takes all of the blame for their shared sin goads his conscience, and his
resultant mental anguish and physical weakness open up his mind and allow him to empathize with others.
Consequently, he becomes an eloquent and emotionally powerful speaker and a compassionate leader, and
his congregation is able to receive meaningful spiritual guidance from him.
Ironically, the townspeople do not believe Dimmesdales protestations of sinfulness. Given his background
and his penchant for rhetorical speech, Dimmesdales congregation generally interprets his sermons
allegorically rather than as expressions of any personal guilt. This drives Dimmesdale to further internalize
his guilt and self-punishment and leads to still more deterioration in his physical and spiritual condition. The
towns idolization of him reaches new heights after his Election Day sermon, which is his last. In his death,
Dimmesdale becomes even more of an icon than he was in life. Many believe his confession was a symbolic
act, while others believe Dimmesdales fate was an example of divine judgment.
Pearl
Hesters daughter, Pearl, functions primarily as a symbol. She is quite young during most of the events of
this novelwhen Dimmesdale dies she is only seven years oldand her real importance lies in her ability
to provoke the adult characters in the book. She asks them pointed questions and draws their attention, and
the readers, to the denied or overlooked truths of the adult world. In general, children inThe Scarlet
Letter are portrayed as more perceptive and more honest than adults, and Pearl is the most perceptive of
them all.
Pearl makes us constantly aware of her mothers scarlet letter and of the society that produced it. From an
early age, she fixates on the emblem. Pearls innocent, or perhaps intuitive, comments about the letter raise

crucial questions about its meaning. Similarly, she inquires about the relationships between those around her
most important, the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdaleand offers perceptive critiques of
them. Pearl provides the texts harshest, and most penetrating, judgment of Dimmesdales failure to admit to
his adultery. Once her fathers identity is revealed, Pearl is no longer needed in this symbolic capacity; at
Dimmesdales death she becomes fully human, leaving behind her otherworldliness and her preternatural
vision.
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Mark Twain

Analysis of Major Characters

Huck Finn
From the beginning of the novel, Twain makes it clear that Huck is a boy who comes from the lowest levels
of white society. His father is a drunk and a ruffian who disappears for months on end. Huck himself is dirty
and frequently homeless. Although the Widow Douglas attempts to reform Huck, he resists her attempts
and maintains his independent ways. The community has failed to protect him from his father, and though
the Widow finally gives Huck some of the schooling and religious training that he had missed, he has not
been indoctrinated with social values in the same way a middle-class boy like Tom Sawyer has been. Hucks
distance from mainstream society makes him skeptical of the world around him and the ideas it passes on to
him.
Hucks instinctual distrust and his experiences as he travels down the river force him to question the things
society has taught him. According to the law, Jim is Miss Watsons property, but according to Hucks sense
of logic and fairness, it seems right to help Jim. Hucks natural intelligence and his willingness to think
through a situation on its own merits lead him to some conclusions that are correct in their context but that
would shock white society. For example, Huck discovers, when he and Jim meet a group of slave-hunters,
that telling a lie is sometimes the right course of action.
Because Huck is a child, the world seems new to him. Everything he encounters is an occasion for thought.
Because of his background, however, he does more than just apply the rules that he has been taughthe
creates his own rules. Yet Huck is not some kind of independent moral genius. He must still struggle with
some of the preconceptions about blacks that society has ingrained in him, and at the end of the novel, he
shows himself all too willing to follow Tom Sawyers lead. But even these failures are part of what makes
Huck appealing and sympathetic. He is only a boy, after all, and therefore fallible. Imperfect as he is, Huck
represents what anyone is capable of becoming: a thinking, feeling human being rather than a mere cog in
the machine of society.
Jim
Jim, Hucks companion as he travels down the river, is a man of remarkable intelligence and compassion. At
first glance, Jim seems to be superstitious to the point of idiocy, but a careful reading of the time that Huck
and Jim spend on Jacksons Island reveals that Jims superstitions conceal a deep knowledge of the natural
world and represent an alternate form of truth or intelligence. Moreover, Jim has one of the few healthy,
functioning families in the novel. Although he has been separated from his wife and children, he misses
them terribly, and it is only the thought of a permanent separation from them that motivates his criminal act

of running away from Miss Watson. On the river, Jim becomes a surrogate father, as well as a friend, to
Huck, taking care of him without being intrusive or smothering. He cooks for the boy and shelters him from
some of the worst horrors that they encounter, including the sight of Paps corpse, and, for a time, the news
of his fathers passing.
Some readers have criticized Jim as being too passive, but it is important to remember that he remains at the
mercy of every other character in this novel, including even the poor, thirteen-year-old Huck, as the letter
that Huck nearly sends to Miss Watson demonstrates. Like Huck, Jim is realistic about his situation and must
find ways of accomplishing his goals without incurring the wrath of those who could turn him in. In this
position, he is seldom able to act boldly or speak his mind. Nonetheless, despite these restrictions and
constant fear, Jim consistently acts as a noble human being and a loyal friend. In fact, Jim could be
described as the only real adult in the novel, and the only one who provides a positive, respectable example
for Huck to follow.
Tom Sawyer
Tom is the same age as Huck and his best friend. Whereas Hucks birth and upbringing have left him in
poverty and on the margins of society, Tom has been raised in relative comfort. As a result, his beliefs are an
unfortunate combination of what he has learned from the adults around him and the fanciful notions he has
gleaned from reading romance and adventure novels. Tom believes in sticking strictly to rules, most of
which have more to do with style than with morality or anyones welfare. Tom is thus the perfect foil for
Huck: his rigid adherence to rules and precepts contrasts with Hucks tendency to question authority and
think for himself.
Although Toms escapades are often funny, they also show just how disturbingly and unthinkingly cruel
society can be. Tom knows all along that Miss Watson has died and that Jim is now a free man, yet he is
willing to allow Jim to remain a captive while he entertains himself with fantastic escape plans. Toms
plotting tortures not only Jim, but Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas as well. In the end, although he is just a boy
like Huck and is appealing in his zest for adventure and his unconscious wittiness, Tom embodies what a
young, well-to-do white man is raised to become in the society of his time: self-centered with dominion over
all.
MOBY-DICK
Herman Melville

Analysis of Major Characters

Ishmael
Despite his centrality to the story, Ishmael doesnt reveal much about himself to the reader. We know that he
has gone to sea out of some deep spiritual malaise and that shipping aboard a whaler is his version of
committing suicidehe believes that men aboard a whaling ship are lost to the world. It is apparent from
Ishmaels frequent digressions on a wide range of subjectsfrom art, geology, and anatomy to legal codes
and literaturethat he is intelligent and well educated, yet he claims that a whaling ship has been [his] Yale
College and [his] Harvard. He seems to be a self-taught Renaissance man, good at everything but
committed to nothing. Given the mythic, romantic aspects of Moby-Dick, it is perhaps fitting that its narrator

should be an enigma: not everything in a story so dependent on fate and the seemingly supernatural needs to
make perfect sense.
Additionally, Ishmael represents the fundamental contradiction between the story of Moby-Dickand its
setting. Melville has created a profound and philosophically complicated tale and set it in a world of largely
uneducated working-class men; Ishmael, thus, seems less a real character than an instrument of the author.
No one else aboard the Pequod possesses the proper combination of intellect and experience to tell this
story. Indeed, at times even Ishmael fails Melvilles purposes, and he disappears from the story for long
stretches, replaced by dramatic dialogues and soliloquies from Ahab and other characters.
Ahab
Ahab, the Pequods obsessed captain, represents both an ancient and a quintessentially modern type of hero.
Like the heroes of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, Ahab suffers from a single fatal flaw, one he shares with
such legendary characters as Oedipus and Faust. His tremendous overconfidence, or hubris, leads him to
defy common sense and believe that, like a god, he can enact his will and remain immune to the forces of
nature. He considers Moby Dick the embodiment of evil in the world, and he pursues the White Whale
monomaniacally because he believes it his inescapable fate to destroy this evil. According to the critic M. H.
Abrams, such a tragic hero moves us to pity because, since he is not an evil man, his misfortune is greater
than he deserves; but he moves us also to fear, because we recognize similar possibilities of error in our own
lesser and fallible selves.
Unlike the heroes of older tragic works, however, Ahab suffers from a fatal flaw that is not necessarily
inborn but instead stems from damage, in his case both psychological and physical, inflicted by life in a
harsh world. He is as much a victim as he is an aggressor, and the symbolic opposition that he constructs
between himself and Moby Dick propels him toward what he considers a destined end.
Moby Dick
In a sense, Moby Dick is not a character, as the reader has no access to the White Whales thoughts, feelings,
or intentions. Instead, Moby Dick is an impersonal force, one that many critics have interpreted as an
allegorical representation of God, an inscrutable and all-powerful being that humankind can neither
understand nor defy. Moby Dick thwarts free will and cannot be defeated, only accommodated or avoided.
Ishmael tries a plethora of approaches to describe whales in general, but none proves adequate. Indeed, as
Ishmael points out, the majority of a whale is hidden from view at all times. In this way, a whale mirrors its
environment. Like the whale, only the surface of the ocean is available for human observation and
interpretation, while its depths conceal unknown and unknowable truths. Furthermore, even when Ishmael
does get his hands on a whole whale, he is unable to determine which partthe skeleton, the head, the
skinoffers the best understanding of the whole living, breathing creature; he cannot localize the essence of
the whale. This conundrum can be read as a metaphor for the human relationship with the Christian God (or
any other god, for that matter): God is unknowable and cannot be pinned down.
Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask
The Pequods three mates are used primarily to provide philosophical contrasts with Ahab. Starbuck, the
first mate, is a religious man. Sober and conservative, he relies on his Christian faith to determine his actions
and interpretations of events. Stubb, the second mate, is jolly and cool in moments of crisis. He has worked
in the dangerous occupation of whaling for so long that the possibility of death has ceased to concern him. A
fatalist, he believes that things happen as they are meant to and that there is little that he can do about it.
Flask simply enjoys the thrill of the hunt and takes pride in killing whales. He doesnt stop to consider
consequences at all and is utterly lost . . . to all sense of reverence for the whale. All three of these

perspectives are used to accentuate Ahabs monomania. Ahab reads his experiences as the result of a
conspiracy against him by some larger force. Unlike Flask, he thinks and interprets. Unlike Stubb, he
believes that he can alter his world. Unlike Starbuck, he places himself rather than some external set of
principles at the center of the cosmic order that he discerns.
HEART OF DARKNESS
Joseph Conrad

Analysis of Major Characters

Marlow
Although Marlow appears in several of Conrads other works, it is important not to view him as merely a
surrogate for the author. Marlow is a complicated man who anticipates the figures of high modernism while
also reflecting his Victorian predecessors. Marlow is in many ways a traditional hero: tough, honest, an
independent thinker, a capable man. Yet he is also broken or damaged, like T. S. Eliots J. Alfred
Prufrock or William Faulkners Quentin Compson. The world has defeated him in some fundamental way,
and he is weary, skeptical, and cynical. Marlow also mediates between the figure of the intellectual and that
of the working tough. While he is clearly intelligent, eloquent, and a natural philosopher, he is not saddled
with the angst of centuries worth of Western thought. At the same time, while he is highly skilled at what he
doeshe repairs and then ably pilots his own shiphe is no mere manual laborer. Work, for him, is a
distraction, a concrete alternative to the posturing and excuse-making of those around him.
Marlow can also be read as an intermediary between the two extremes of Kurtz and the Company. He is
moderate enough to allow the reader to identify with him, yet open-minded enough to identify at least
partially with either extreme. Thus, he acts as a guide for the reader. Marlows intermediary position can be
seen in his eventual illness and recovery. Unlike those who truly confront or at least acknowledge Africa and
the darkness within themselves, Marlow does not die, but unlike the Company men, who focus only on
money and advancement, Marlow suffers horribly. He is thus contaminated by his experiences and
memories, and, like Coleridges Ancient Mariner, destined, as purgation or penance, to repeat his story to all
who will listen.
Kurtz
Kurtz, like Marlow, can be situated within a larger tradition. Kurtz resembles the archetypal evil genius:
the highly gifted but ultimately degenerate individual whose fall is the stuff of legend. Kurtz is related to
figures like Faustus, Satan in Miltons Paradise Lost, Moby-Dicks Ahab, and Wuthering Heightss
Heathcliff. Like these characters, he is significant both for his style and eloquence and for his grandiose,
almost megalomaniacal scheming. In a world of mundanely malicious men and flabby devils, attracting
enough attention to be worthy of damnation is indeed something. Kurtz can be criticized in the same terms
that Heart of Darkness is sometimes criticized: style entirely overrules substance, providing a justification
for amorality and evil.
In fact, it can be argued that style does not just override substance but actually masks the fact that Kurtz is
utterly lacking in substance. Marlow refers to Kurtz as hollow more than once. This could be taken
negatively, to mean that Kurtz is not worthy of contemplation. However, it also points to Kurtzs ability to
function as a choice of nightmares for Marlow: in his essential emptiness, he becomes a cipher, a site upon

which other things can be projected. This emptiness should not be read as benign, however, just as Kurtzs
eloquence should not be allowed to overshadow the malice of his actions. Instead, Kurtz provides Marlow
with a set of paradoxes that Marlow can use to evaluate himself and the Companys men.
Indeed, Kurtz is not so much a fully realized individual as a series of images constructed by others for their
own use. As Marlows visits with Kurtzs cousin, the Belgian journalist, and Kurtzs fiance demonstrate,
there seems to be no true Kurtz. To his cousin, he was a great musician; to the journalist, a brilliant politician
and leader of men; to his fiance, a great humanitarian and genius. All of these contrast with Marlows
version of the man, and he is left doubting the validity of his memories. Yet Kurtz, through his charisma and
larger-than-life plans, remains with Marlow and with the reader.
LORD JIM
Joseph Conrad

Characters

Jim - Also known as "Lord Jim," or "Tuan Jim." The hero of our story, Jim is a young man who, inspired by
popular literature, goes to sea dreaming of becoming a hero. He gets his chance when the ship he is aboard
gets damaged, and fails utterly by abandoning ship with the rest of the crew. Haunted by his failure and
stripped of his officer's certificate, he wanders from job to job, finally becoming the manager of a remote
trading post. He falls in love with Jewel, a beautiful, half-native girl, and, by defeating a local bandit,
becomes leader of the people. His dreams of heroism lead to his failure to kill a marauding white pirate,
Gentleman Brown, which in turn leads to the death of Dain Waris, his best friend and son of Doramin, the
local chief. Jim allows Doramin to shoot him in retribution.
Marlow - The narrator of this story and a ship's captain. Marlow first encounters Jim at the inquiry where
Jim loses his certification. Feeling that Jim is "one of us," he takes an interest in him, first helping him find
employment as a water clerk and as a trading post manager for Stein, then compulsively piecing together
Jim's story and perpetuating it through various retellings. It is Marlow who filters and interprets most of the
narrative for the reader.
Jewel - Daughter of the Dutch-Malay woman and stepdaughter of Cornelius. She and Jim fall in love, and
she makes him promise never to leave her. She is a pragmatic woman and encourages Jim to fight to survive
after Dain Waris's death. Marlow encounters her after Jim's death at Stein's, where she, broken and
saddened, reminds Marlow that her prediction of Jim's infidelity has come true.
Stein - The owner of a large trading post, he sends first Cornelius and then Jim to Patusan. Stein was forced
to flee Europe as a young man after becoming involved in revolutionary activities. Having made his way to
the East Indies, he has become successful as a trader. A thoughtful, analytical man who immediately
"diagnoses" Jim for Marlow, he collects butterflies and beetles.
Gentleman Brown - A white pirate who, having barely escaped Spanish officials in the Philippines, comes
to Patusan hoping to steal some provisions. He is rather famous in this part of the world, and is used as the
stock bad guy whenever locals are telling stories. He is proud, terrified of confinement. He and his men are
attacked upon arrival in Patusan by Dain Waris and his band, who have had advance warning of their
coming. Although he had initially wanted to conquer and loot Patusan, he realizes he is outnumbered and
negotiates with Jim. In those negotiations, Brown shows that he is aware that Jim has a dark past, thereby

appealing to Jim's tortured sense of ideals and receiving permission to retreat in safety. Brown has been
conspiring with Cornelius and the Rajah Allang, though, and on his way back to his ship, he surprises Dain
Waris and his men at their camp. Dain Waris is killed, which will lead to Jim's death. Brown and his men are
shipwrecked soon after. Brown is the only survivor, although he dies soon afterward. Marlow visits him on
his deathbed and gets part of the story from him. Brown is an important contrast to Jim, as a man who lives a
romantic life, but one that is far from moral or idealized. Unlike Jim, Brown is quick to own up to his past
and his fears.
Cornelius - Husband of the Dutch-Malay woman, he is the previous manager of Stein's Patusan post. A
bitter, conniving man, he betrays Jim to Gentleman Brown and causes the death of Dain Waris. He is Jewel's
stepfather, and treats her badly, even asking for Jim to give him money in exchange for her.
Dutch-Malay woman - A woman with a mysterious past, she is Jewel's mother and Cornelius's wife
(although Cornelius is not Jewel's father). As a favor to her, Stein gives Cornelius a post in Patusan. She dies
a horrible death with Cornelius, who has always tormented her, trying to break down the door to her room.
Crew of the Patna - Jim's fellow officers aboard the Patna, they immediately begin to try to leave the
damaged ship after the collision. A physically repulsive and dishonorable lot, they flee before the inquiry.
One of them, the third engineer, dies of a heart attack on board and is found by rescuers. Marlow meets with
another of them in a hospital. The man is delirious from the effects of alcoholism and is hallucinating pink
toads, but he tells Marlow that he personally watched the Patna sink (the ship did not actually sink). The
captain is an enormous, disgusting man who bullies Jim. Jim encounters another of the engineers in the
workplace of his first post-Patna employer, which causes him (Jim) to skip town.
Captain Brierly - One of the most decorated and respected ship's captains in the area. He is on the board of
inquiry that tries Jim. Secretly, he makes Marlow an offer of money to help Jim run away. Not long after the
inquiry, he commits suicide, motivated by some secret shame. He is implicitly contrasted with Jim.
Chester and Robinson - Two disreputable characters who offer Jim, through Marlow, a job taking a wreck
of a ship to a desolate island to collect guano. Both have questionable pasts and can be compared with both
Jim and Gentleman Brown. The guano-collecting mission, under someone else's command, leaves port and
is never heard from again; it is thought to have been wiped out by a hurricane.
French lieutenant - Marlow meets the French lieutenant in a Sydney caf many years after the events of
the novel. The lieutenant was the man who stayed aboard the damaged Patna as his gunboat towed her back
into port. Although his act was heroic, he seems to have been motivated more by duty and professionalism.
His prosaic attitude and his failure to describe the mystery of the experience adequately in words disappoints
and even disgusts Marlow.
Doramin - Chief of the Bugis; a wise, kind old man and a "war-comrade" of Stein's. Stein gives Jim a silver
ring as a token of introduction to Doramin. Doramin saves Jim after his escape from the Rajah Allang, who
had been holding him prisoner. Doramin is the father of Dain Waris, Jim's closest friend. When Dain Waris
is killed because of Jim's misjudgment, Doramin shoots and kills Jim, who has offered himself up as a
sacrifice.
Dain Waris - Doramin's son and Jim's best friend. The two are soul mates, and Dain Waris serves as Jim's
second-in-command. He leads the initial attack on Gentleman Brown, but is not entirely successful, lacking
Jim's charisma as a leader of men. He is killed when Cornelius leads Brown down the river channel behind
his camp, after Jim foolishly frees Brown and his men.

Bugis - A group of traders from Celebes who immigrate to Patusan many years before Jim arrives there.
They are constantly embroiled in conflict with the Rajah Allang, who wants to shut down their trading
activities and enjoy a monopoly for himself. Doramin is their chief.
Tamb'Itam - A Malay who came to Patusan and was enslaved by the Rajah Allang. Freed by Doramin, he
becomes Jim's loyal servant and adviser. He escapes with Jewel after Jim's death and is the one to give
Marlow the most complete account of Jim's final days.
Rajah Allang - Also known as Tunku Allang. The corrupt, unofficial ruler of Patusan; the uncle of the
legitimate but underage and possibly mentally-incompetent Sultan. He tries to enforce a monopoly on trade
in the area. Allang captures Jim upon his arrival in Patusan. He also secretly allies with Gentleman Brown
against Jim.
Sherif Ali - A fanatic Muslim bandit who terrorizes Patusan from a stronghold in the hills. Jim defeats Ali
to become a hero in Patusan.

ULYSSES
James Joyce

Analysis of Major Characters

Leopold Bloom
Leopold Bloom functions as a sort of Everymana bourgeois Odysseus for the twentieth century. At the
same time, the novels depiction of his personality is one of the most detailed in all literature. Bloom is a
thirty-eight-year-old advertising canvasser. His father was a Hungarian Jew, and Joyce exploits the irony of
this factthat Dublins latter-day Odysseus is really a Jew with Hungarian originsto such an extent that
readers often forget Blooms Irish mother and multiple baptisms. Blooms status as an outsider, combined
with his own ability to envision an inclusive state, make him a figure who both suffers from and exposes the
insularity of Ireland and Irishness in 1904. Yet the social exclusion of Bloom is not simply one-sided. Bloom
is clear-sighted and mostly unsentimental when it comes to his male peers. He does not like to drink often or
to gossip, and though he is always friendly, he is not sorry to be excluded from their circles.
When Bloom first appears in Episode Four ofUlysses, his character is noteworthy for its differences from
Stephens character, on which the first three episodes focus. Stephens cerebrality makes Blooms comfort
with the physical world seem more remarkable. This ease accords with his practical mind and scientific
curiosity. Whereas Stephen, in Episode Three, shuts himself off from the mat-erial world to ponder the
workings of his own perception, Bloom appears in the beginning of Episode Four bending down to his cat,
wondering howher senses work. Blooms comfort with the physical also manifests itself in his sexuality, a
dimension mostly absent from Stephens character. We get ample evidence of Blooms sexualityfrom his
penchant for voyeurism and female underclothing to his masturbation and erotic correspondencewhile
Stephen seems inexperienced and celibate.
Other disparities between the two men further define Blooms character: where Stephen is depressive and
somewhat dramatic, Bloom is mature and even-headed. Bloom possesses the ability to cheer himself up and
to pragmatically refuse to think about depressing topics. Yet Bloom and Stephen are similar, too. They are

both unrealized artists, if with completely different agendas. As one Dubliner puts it, Theres a touch of the
artist about old Bloom. We might say that Blooms conception of art is bourgeois, in the sense that he
considers art as a way to effect peoples actions and feelings in an immediate way. From his desire to create
a newer, better advertisement, to his love poem to Molly, to his reading of Shakespeare for its moral value,
Blooms version of art does not stray far from real-life situations. Blooms sense of culture and his aspiration
to be cultured also seem to bring him close to Stephen. The two men share a love for music, and Stephens
companionship is attractive to Bloom, who would love to be an expert, rather than a dabbler, in various
subjects.
Two emotional crises plague Blooms otherwise cheerful demeanor throughout Ulyssesthe breakdown of
his male family line and the infidelity of his wife, Molly. The untimely deaths of both Blooms father (by
suicide) and only son, Rudy (days after his birth), lead Bloom to feel cosmically lonely and powerless.
Bloom is allowed a brief respite from these emotions during his union with Stephen in the latter part of the
novel. We slowly realize over the course ofUlysses that the first crisis of family line is related to the second
crisis of marital infidelity: the Blooms intimacy and attempts at procreation have broken down since the
death of their only son eleven years ago. Blooms reaction to Mollys decision to look elsewhere (to Blazes
Boylan) for sex is complex. Bloom enjoys the fact that other men appreciate his wife, and he is generally a
passive, accepting person. Bloom is clear-sighted enough to realize, though, that Blazes Boylan is a paltry
replacement for himself, and he ultimately cheers himself by recontextualizing the problem. Boylan is only
one of many, and it is on Molly that Bloom should concentrate his own energies.
In fact, it is this ability to shift perspective by sympathizing with another viewpoint that renders Bloom
heroic. His compassion is evident throughouthe is charitable to animals and people in need, his
sympathies extend even to a woman in labor. Blooms masculinity is frequently called into question by other
characters; hence, the second irony of Ulysses is that Bloom as Everyman is also somewhat feminine. And it
is precisely his fluid, androgynous capacity to empathize with people and things of all typesand to be both
a symbolic father and a mother to Stephenthat makes him the hero of the novel.
Molly Bloom
Over the course of the novel, we get a very clear picture of Bloom and Stephen because we witness their
interactions with many different people and see what they are thinking throughout all of these interactions.
For most of the novel we only see Molly Bloom through other peoples eyes, so it may be tempting to
dismiss her as a self-centered, unfaithful woman. The way we decide to view her will require us to
reevaluate the understanding we have thus far formed of Leopold Bloom. If we focus on the vulgarity and
physicality of her monologue, our built-up sympathies with Bloom as the well-meaning husband of a loose
woman are ratified. But a more nuanced understanding of her involves seeing her as an outgoing woman
who takes a certain pride in her husband, but who has been feeling a lack of demonstrative love. This idea
yields a reevaluation of Bloom as being unfaithful in his own ways and complicit in the temporary
breakdown of their marriage.
Like Bloom, Molly is a Dublin outsider. She was raised in the military atmosphere of Gibraltar by her father,
Major Brian Tweedy. Molly never knew her mother, who was possibly Jewish, or just Jewish-lo-oking.
Bloom associates Molly with the hot-blooded Mediterranean regions, and, to a lesser degree, the
exoticism of the East. Yet Molly considers her own childhood to have been normal, outside the dramatic
entrances and exits of young, good-looking soldiers going off to war. Molly seems to organize her life
around men and to have very few female friends. She enjoys being looked at and gains self-esteem from the
admiration of men. Molly is extremely self-aware and perceptiveshe knows without looking when she is
being looked at. A mans admiration of her does not cloud her own negative judgments about him. She is
frank about topics that other people are likely to sentimentalizeintimacy, mourning, and motherhood, for

example. She is also frank about the extent to which living involves adaptations of different roles. Her sense
of this truthwhich is perhaps related to her own career as a stage singeraligns her with Stephen, who is
also conscious of his outward existence in terms of a series of roles. Molly and Stephen both share a
capacity for storytelling, scene-setting, and mimicry. Mollys storytelling and frankness about role-playing
evinces her sense of humor, and it also mediates our sense of her as a hypocritical character. Finally, it is this
pragmatic and fluid adoption of roles that enables Molly to reconnect with Bloom through vivid
recollections, and, indeed, reenactments, of the past, as in her final memory of the Howth scene at the end
of Ulysses.
Stephen Dedalus
The character of Stephen Dedalus is a harshly drawn version of Joyce himself at age twenty-two. Stephen
first appeared as the main character of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which followed his
development from early childhood to his proud and ambitious days before leaving Dublin for Paris and the
realization of his artistic capabilities. When we meet Stephen again at the beginning ofUlysses, it is over two
years after the end of Portrait. Stephen has been back in Dublin for over a year, having returned to sit at his
mothers deathbed. Stephens artistic talent is still unrealizedhe is currently a reluctant teacher of history
at a boys school. He is disappointed and moody and is still dressed in mourning over the death of his
mother almost a year ago. Stephens interactions with various charactersBuck, Haines, Mr. Deasyin the
opening episodes of the book crystallize our sense of the damaging ties and obligations that have resulted
from Stephens return to Ireland. At the beginning of Ulysses, Stephen is a self-conscious young man whose
identity is still in formation. Stephens aloofness and his attempts to understand himself through fictional
characters such as Hamlet dramatize his struggle to solidify this identity.
Stephen is depicted as above most of the action of the novel. He exists mainly within his own world of ideas
his actions in the world tend to pointedly distance himself from others and from the world itself. His
freeness with money is less a demonstration of his generosity than of his lack of material concerns. His
unwashed state similarly reflects his removal from the material world. His cryptic stories and riddles cut others off rather than include them. He stubbornly holds grudges, and our admiration of his noble struggle for
independence is tempered by our knowledge of the impoverished siblings he has left behind. If Stephen
himself is an unsympathetic character, however, the issues central to his identity struggle are easier for us to
sympathize with. From his contemplation of the eyes perception of the outside world to his teaching of a
history lesson to his meditations on amor matris or mother love, Stephens mental meanderings center on
the problem of whether, and how, to be an active or passive being within the world.
Stephens struggles tend to center around his parents. His mother, who seems to blame Stephen for refusing
to pray at her deathbed, represents not only a mothers love but also the church and Ireland. Stephen is
haunted by his mothers memory and ghost in the same ways that he is haunted by memories of his early
piety. Though Stephens father is still alive and well, we see Stephen attempting to ignore or deny him
throughout all of Ulysses. Stephens struggle with his father seems to be about Stephens need to have a
space in which to createa space untainted by Simon Dedaluss overly critical judgments. Stephens
struggle to define his identity without the constraint or aid imposed by his father bleeds into larger conflicts
Stephens struggle with the authority of God, the authority of the British empire, even with the authority
of the mocker or joker.
After the first three episodes, Stephens appearances in Ulysses are limited. However, these limited
appearancesin Episodes Nine, Fourteen, and Fifteendemonstrate that Stephens attempted repudiation
of authority and obligations has precipitated what seems to him to be the abandonment of all those close to
him. At the end of Episode Fifteen, Stephen lies nearly unconscious on the ground, feeling as though he has

been betrayed by everyone. Never before has Stephen seemed so much in need of a parent, and it is
Bloomnot wholly father nor motherwho cares for him.
Though Stephen plays a part in the final episodes of Ulysses, we see less and less of his thoughts as the
novel progresses (and, perhaps not coincidentally, Stephen becomes drunker and drunker). Instead, the
circumstances of the novel and the apparent choices that Stephen makes take over our sense of his character.
By the novels end, we see that Stephen recognizes a break with Buck Mulligan, will quit his job at Deasys
school, and has accepted, if only temporarily, Blooms hospitality. In Blooms kitchen, Stephen puts
something in his mouth besides alcohol for the first time since Episode One, and has a conversation with
Bloom, as opposed to performing as he did earlier in the day. We are thus encouraged to understand that, in
the calm of the late-night hours, Stephen has recognized the power of a reciprocal relationship to provide
sustenance.
THE GREAT GATSBY
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Analysis of Major Characters

Jay Gatsby
The title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from an
impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he achieved this
lofty goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen
securities. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and sophisticationhe
dropped out of St. Olafs College after only two weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with
which he was paying his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in
acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in
Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisys aura
of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was
good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in
1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that
moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his
purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end.
Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel. Gatsbys
reputation precedes himGatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter 3. Fitzgerald
initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week
at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful
women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary
celebrity before he is ever introduced to the reader. Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early
chapters by shrouding Gatsbys background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns about
Gatsbys childhood in Chapter 6 and receives definitive proof of his criminal dealings in Chapter 7). As a
result, the readers first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note from that of the lovesick,
naive young man who emerges during the later part of the novel.
Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical quality of Gatsbys
approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character,

even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As his
relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and
dreams into reality; at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the
world. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his quality of greatness: indeed, the title The
Great Gatsby is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as The Great Houdini and The
Great Blackstone, suggesting that the persona of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsbys self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be
an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are
unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality
and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates,
revealing the corruption that wealth causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald
sees the American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as Americas powerful optimism, vitality, and
individualism become subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.
Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out that the former, passionate and active,
and the latter, sober and reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgeralds personality. Additionally,
whereas Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, Gatsby is a loyal and good-hearted man. Though his
lifestyle and attitude differ greatly from those of George Wilson, Gatsby and Wilson share the fact that they
both lose their love interest to Tom.
Nick Carraway
If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgeralds personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued and glorified
wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet, reflective
Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from
Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of
Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisys cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the
resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick
is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his experiences with
Gatsby in the summer of 1922.
Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in
Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him
and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick
generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events
rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzgeralds voice, as in his extended
meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.
Insofar as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East
Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. On the
one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds
that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nicks
romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is repelled
by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people.
Nick states that there is a quality of distortion to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes him lose his
equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsbys party in Chapter 2. After

witnessing the unraveling of Gatsbys dream and presiding over the appalling spectacle of Gatsbys funeral,
Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that
the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to
Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.
Daisy Buchanan
Partially based on Fitzgeralds wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky.
She is Nicks cousin and the object of Gatsbys love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy was
extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied
about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was
worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisys heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the
war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man
from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her
parents.
After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all of his dreams
and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby,
Daisy represents the paragon of perfectionshe has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and
aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality,
however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsbys ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow,
bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats
behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then
allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car.
Finally, rather than attend Gatsbys funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection
(she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained
loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an
afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter 7. In Fitzgeralds conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy
represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set.
MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA
Eugene O'Neill

Analysis of Major Characters

Lavinia Mannon
Lavinia is Ezra's wooden, stiff-shouldered, flat-chested, thin, and angular daughter. She is garbed in the
black of mourning. Her militaristic bearing, a mark of her identification with her father, symbolizes her role
as a functionary of the Mannon clan or, to use Christine's terms, as their sentry. Lavinia appears as the
keeper of the family crypt and all its secrets, figuring as an agent of repression throughout the play. She will
urge Orin in particular to forget the dead, compulsively insist upon the justice of their crimes, and keep the
history of the family's past from coming to light. Lavinia's repressive stiffness and mask-like countenance
mirrors that of the house, the monument of repression erected by her ancestors to conceal their disgraces.

Ultimately this manor becomes her tomb, Lavinia condemning herself to live with the Mannon dead until
she and all their secrets with her die.
Despite her loyalties to the Mannon line, Lavinia appears as her mother double from the outset of the play,
sharing the same lustrous copper hair, violet eyes, and mask-like face. Christine is her rival. Lavinia
considers herself robbed of all love at her mother's hands, Christine not only taking her father but her wouldbe lover as well. Thus she schemes to take Christine's place and become the wife of her father and mother of
her brother. She does so upon her mother's death, reincarnating her in her own flesh.
In doing so, Lavinia comes to femininity and sexuality. Lavinia traces a classical Oedipal trajectory, in
which the daughter, horrified by her castration, yearns to become the mother and bear a child by her father
that would redeem her lack. Orin figures as this child as well as the husband she would leave to be with her
son, that is, Peter substituting as Brant.
Orin Mannon
The Mannon son returned from war, Orin is the boyish counterpart to Aeschylus's Orestes. He loves his
mother incestuously, yearning for pre-Oedipal plentitude, the mythic moment prior to the intervention of the
father into the mother-son dyad. This pre-Oedipal paradise appears primarily in two fantasies: that of the
secret world he shares with Christine in childhood and the Blessed Island he imagines as a haven from the
war.
As the stage notes indicate, Orin bears a striking resemblance to the other Mannon men though he appears as
a weakened, refined, and oversensitive version of each. These doubles are his rivals within the Mother-Son
love affair that structures the trilogy, with Orin competing with Ezra and Brant for Christine's desire. Thus
he flies into a jealous rage upon the discovery of her love affair that leads to Christine and Brant's deaths.
Orin will then force he and his sister to judgment for their crimes in an attempt to rejoin his mother in death.
Christine Mannon
Christine is a striking woman of forty with a fine, voluptuous figure, flowing animal grace, and a mass of
beautiful copper hair. Her pale face is also a life- like mask, a mask that represents both her duplicity and her
almost super-human efforts at repression.
Having long abhorred her husband Ezra, Christine plots his murder with her lover Brant upon his return
from the Civil War. She loves incestuously, repudiating her husband and clinging to her son as that which is
all her own. She repeats this incestuous relation in her affair with Brant, rediscovering Orin in a substitute.
Like her double, Brant's mother Marie, Christine moves with an animal-like grace, grace that codes for her
sexual excess. This grace makes her exotic, or even of another race, aligning her with the recurring figures
of the island native. It makes sense that Lavinia must go among the natives to fully assume her figure.
As her characteristic green dress suggests, Christine is consumed with envy. She envies Brant's Island
women, hating them for their sexual pleasures. Despite the desperate veneer of kindness, she envies Hazel
for her youth, imagining her as a figure for what she once was. Before the threat of her oncoming age, she
must secure her love affair with Brant at all costs.
Ezra Mannon
As his homophonic name suggests, he is Agamemnon's counterpart, the great general returned from war to
be murdered by his wife and her lover. We first encounter Ezra prior to his homecoming in the former of the
ominous portrait hanging in his study. Here, as throughout the trilogy, Ezra is dressed in his judge's robes
and appears as a symbol of the law.

Ezra's authority rests primarily in his symbolic form. Indeed, he is far more the figure for the law in this
form than as a broken, bitter, ruined husband. Both before and after his death, Ezra will continuously appear
in his symbolic capacities. His mannerisms, for example, suggest the unyielding statue-like poses of military
heroes; to Christine, he imagines himself as a statue of a great man standing in a square. After his death,
Lavinia will constantly invoke his name and voice. Christine will hear herself condemned by his corpse.
Ezra's various images will call his family to judgment from beyond the grave.
Adam Brant
Brant is a powerful, romantic sea captain. He has swarthy complexion, sensual mouth, and long, coal-black
hair. He dresses, as if some romantic Byronic ideal, in almost foppish extravagance with touches of studied
carelessness. The child of the illegitimate Mannon line, he returns to wreak vengeance on Ezra's household.
He steals Ezra's wife and seduces Lavinia to conceal their affair. Brant also of course bares a striking
resemblance to the other Mannon men. He does so as yet another son incestuously enthralled with Mother
and her substitutes.
ABSALOM, ABSALOM!
William Faulkner

Characters

Thomas Sutpen - Owner and founder of the plantation Sutpen's Hundred, in Yoknapatawpha County, near
Jefferson, Mississippi. Married to Ellen Coldfield; father of Henry, Judith, and Clytemnestra Sutpen, also of
Charles Bon. An indomitable, willful, powerful man, who achieves his ends through shrewdness and daring,
but who lacks compassion. Murdered by Wash Jones in 1869.
Charles Bon - Son of Thomas Sutpen and Eulalia Bon, the part- black daughter of the owner of the Haitian
plantation on which the young Thomas Sutpen was overseer. After Sutpen renounced his wife and son upon
learning of Eulalia's negro blood, Bon and his mother moved to New Orleans, where Bon lived until
deciding to attend the University of Mississippi in 1859. A laconic, sophisticated, and ironical young man.
Ellen Coldfield Sutpen - Thomas Sutpen's second wife, mother of Henry and Judith Sutpen. A flighty and
excitable woman.
Rosa Coldfield - Ellen Coldfields much-younger sister, younger aunt of Henry and Judith Sutpen. Briefly
engaged to Thomas Sutpen following Ellen's death, but left him after he insulted her. Spent the rest of her
life as a bitter spinster, obsessed with her anger and hatred of Thomas Sutpen.
Mr. Coldfield - A middle-class Methodist merchant and father of Ellen and Rosa.
Henry Sutpen - Thomas Sutpen's son with Ellen. Grew up on Sutpen's Hundred, then attended the
University of Mississippi beginning in 1859. There he befriended Charles Bon, whom he later murdered. A
well- meaning and romantic young man, with his father's strength of purpose but lacking his father's
shrewdness.
Judith Sutpen - Thomas Sutpen's daughter with Ellen. Grew up on Sutpen's Hundred, where she was
engaged to Charles Bon in 1860. Strong, indomitable, and, like her father, swift to action.

Clytemnestra Sutpen ("Clytie") - Daughter of Thomas Sutpen and a slave woman. Grew up on Sutpen's
Hundred as subservient to Judith and Henry; remained at the plantation until burning the manor house down
in 1910, an event which caused her death.
Wash Jones - A low-class squatter living in the abandoned fishing camp at Sutpen's Hundred. Performed
odd jobs for and drinks whiskey with Thomas Sutpen. Milly's grandfather; murdered Sutpen with a rusted
scythe in 1869.
Milly Jones - Wash Jones' young granddaughter, who at fifteen gave birth to Thomas Sutpen's child.
Murdered, along with Sutpen and the baby, by her grandfather shortly after the birth.
Charles Etienne de St. Valery Bon - Son of Charles Bon and his octoroon mistress- wife. Taken by Clytie
to Sutpen's Hundred in 1871. Married a negro woman in 1879. A tormented, violent man.
Jim Bond - Son of Charles Etienne de St. Valery Bon and his negro wife. Raised by Clytie on Sutpen's
Hundred, from which he disappears following the fire in 1910. A slack-jawed, oafish man.
Quentin Compson - A young man from Jefferson, Mississippi, who is preparing to attend (and later does
attend) Harvard in the first part of the 20th century.
General Compson - Quentin's grandfather and Thomas Sutpen's first friend in Yoknapatawpha County. A
Brigadier General for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and a distinguished citizen of Jefferson,
Mississippi.
Mr. Compson - Quentin's father and General Compson's son, a man who believes in the power of fate to
destroy human lives. Relays to Quentin many of the stories he heard from his father about Thomas Sutpen.
Shreve - Quentin's roommate at Harvard, a young man from Edmonton in Alberta, Canada.
LORD OF THE FLIES
William Golding

Analysis of Major Characters

Ralph
Ralph is the athletic, charismatic protagonist of Lord of the Flies.Elected the leader of the boys at the
beginning of the novel, Ralph is the primary representative of order, civilization, and productive leadership
in the novel. While most of the other boys initially are concerned with playing, having fun, and avoiding
work, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued. For
this reason, Ralphs power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the novel.
However, as the group gradually succumbs to savage instincts over the course of the novel, Ralphs position
declines precipitously while Jacks rises. Eventually, most of the boys except Piggy leave Ralphs group for
Jacks, and Ralph is left alone to be hunted by Jacks tribe. Ralphs commitment to civilization and morality
is strong, and his main wish is to be rescued and returned to the society of adults. In a sense, this strength
gives Ralph a moral victory at the end of the novel, when he casts the Lord of the Flies to the ground and
takes up the stake it is impaled on to defend himself against Jacks hunters.

In the earlier parts of the novel, Ralph is unable to understand why the other boys would give in to base
instincts of bloodlust and barbarism. The sight of the hunters chanting and dancing is baffling and distasteful
to him. As the novel progresses, however, Ralph, like Simon, comes to understand that savagery exists
within all the boys. Ralph remains determined not to let this savagery -overwhelm him, and only briefly
does he consider joining Jacks tribe in order to save himself. When Ralph hunts a boar for the first time,
however, he experiences the exhilaration and thrill of bloodlust and violence. When he attends Jacks feast,
he is swept away by the frenzy, dances on the edge of the group, and participates in the killing of Simon.
This firsthand knowledge of the evil that exists within him, as within all human beings, is tragic for Ralph,
and it plunges him into listless despair for a time. But this knowledge also enables him to cast down the
Lord of the Flies at the end of the novel. Ralphs story ends semi-tragically: although he is rescued and
returned to civilization, when he sees the naval officer, he weeps with the burden of his new knowledge
about the human capacity for evil.
Jack
The strong-willed, egomaniacal Jack is the novels primary representative of the instinct of savagery,
violence, and the desire for powerin short, the antithesis of Ralph. From the beginning of the novel, Jack
desires power above all other things. He is furious when he loses the election to Ralph and continually
pushes the boundaries of his subordinate role in the group. Early on, Jack retains the sense of moral
propriety and behavior that society instilled in himin fact, in school, he was the leader of the choirboys.
The first time he encounters a pig, he is unable to kill it. But Jack soon becomes obsessed with hunting and
devotes himself to the task, painting his face like a barbarian and giving himself over to bloodlust. The more
savage Jack becomes, the more he is able to control the rest of the group. Indeed, apart from Ralph, Simon,
and Piggy, the group largely follows Jack in casting off moral restraint and embracing violence and
savagery. Jacks love of authority and violence are intimately connected, as both enable him to feel powerful
and exalted. By the end of the novel, Jack has learned to use the boys fear of the beast to control their
behaviora reminder of how religion and superstition can be manipulated as instruments of power.
Simon
Whereas Ralph and Jack stand at opposite ends of the spectrum between civilization and savagery, Simon
stands on an entirely different plane from all the other boys. Simon embodies a kind of innate, spiritual
human goodness that is deeply connected with nature and, in its own way, as primal as Jacks evil. The other
boys abandon moral behavior as soon as civilization is no longer there to impose it upon them. They are
not innately moral; rather, the adult worldthe threat of punishment for misdeedshas conditioned them to
act morally. To an extent, even the seemingly civilized Ralph and Piggy are products of social conditioning,
as we see when they participate in the hunt-dance. In Goldings view, the human impulse toward civilization
is not as deeply rooted as the human impulse toward savagery. Unlike all the other boys on the island, Simon
acts morally not out of guilt or shame but because he believes in the inherent value of morality. He behaves
kindly toward the younger children, and he is the first to realize the problem posed by the beast and the Lord
of the Fliesthat is, that the monster on the island is not a real, physical beast but rather a savagery that
lurks within each human being. The sows head on the stake symbolizes this idea, as we see in Simons
vision of the head speaking to him. Ultimately, this idea of the inherent evil within each human being stands
as the moral conclusion and central problem of the novel. Against this idea of evil, Simon represents a
contrary idea of essential human goodness. However, his brutal murder at the hands of the other boys
indicates the scarcity of that good amid an overwhelming abundance of evil.