Character Analysis: Till We Have Faces By C. S. Lewis

Cormac McCarthy’s brain child “The Road” is a postapocalyptic novel that illustrates the harsh reality of the world. This story serves as a truth that humans, when stripped of their humanity will take desperate measures in order to survive. The reader learns; however even when it seems all hope is lost good can still be found in the world. The son character of this story illuminates this philosophy. He is a foil of his father and shows how even a person never accustomed to the luxury of a normal life can still see goodness.

In the story “Not Human Beings”, by Etgar Keret, Shmulik Stein is portrayed as, “the bleeding heart” throughout much of the story. In the beginning of the story, Stein’s character seems to be petulant. When his commander Davidoff, is distracted by the Border Police Officer, taking him away from their game of backgammon, he makes a sarcastic threat about volunteering to go with the personnel officer if Davidoff doesn’t “shoot the fucking dice.” (752) Soon after Stein finds himself selected to spend a week with the Border Police. The first day he spends with them riding around in jeeps, one of the fellow officer’s in a nearby jeep purposely runs over an Arab that was walking down the road, Stein seems to be perplexed about the thoughtless act

Is competition allowed in a friendship? Or should two friends be just friends or just rivals. According to many studies, competition is healthy for a friendship. It allows for a group of friends to push each other and get better. But what if there was a friend who took the competition to heart and viewed the friendship more like a rivalry? In John Knowles, A Separate Peace, the protagonist, Gene Forrester, and his best friend, Finny, grow from a great friendship to a full out rivalry. Can a friendship be a rivalry?

Orual first takes her sister for mad, but eventually is convinced the perhaps she should leave Psyche to her new found joy, to the love of her husband. But her jealousy and obsessive love step in , grudging Psyche her happiness, her love. Orual is unable to comprehend, much less approve, of any love for Psyche that usurps her own. Orual, predictably, resents the gods for the gulf now so plainly separating her from Psyche. "…the world had broken in pieces and Psyche and I were not in the same piece. Seas, mountains, madness, death itself, could not have removed her from me to such a hopeless distance. Gods, and again gods, and always gods…they had stolen her." (TWHF, pg.120-121)

Orual is portrayed clearly as being ugly and constantly being called ugly by other people, including some that were close to her, like her father. This made Orual feel more and more insecure about her looks. This is something that Orual doesn’t want to have to deal with, so if she is veiled than no one can see her face, then they can’t recognize her ugliness. This builds up Orual’s confidence in herself and helps her interact further with people without the fear of them recognizing her ugliness. This also affects people Orual socializes with. People began to grasp other more important qualities in Orual, rather than her face. She realized that she was being treated different by men, that they thought she was beautiful based on other traits, besides her face. “From the very first (it began that night in the garden with Trunia) as soon as my face was invisible, people began to discover all manner of beauties in my voice.” (Lewis 228) This affects the way Orual interacts with people as a queen and in general because she has a newfound sense of confidence in herself while

Though Orual did not agree with her beloved sister being sacrificed, it was something the Priest decided that would ultimately benefit the kingdom. She demanded to go with Psyche to say her last goodbyes, “....I was determined to go with Psyche to the Mountain and the holy Tree, unless they bound me with chains (77).” Psyche was willing to be sacrificed when she knew she would help everyone she loved, even when she felt miserable, “‘...my arms were as heavy as lead (106).’” Even when she was being tied to the tree, “‘...and they were fastening me to the Tree with iron round my waist (107).’” she wasn’t focused on herself and her own pain. When being tied to the Tree, Psyche explained how many animals surrounded her, “‘And they came nearer and nearer in a great circle, but never very near, and mooed at me (109).’” Once Psyche was set free, she described the great wind around her, “‘And then the wind was

    Orual is writing a book as her complaint against the gods and all the wrong that they have done to her. Through her narrative she demonstrates to the reader her erroneous thinking, which she realizes later in her life. . She sees her own face in the second section of the book when the veil in front of her spiritual face is removed and her true self  is exposed. She realizes that she was not as righteous as she believed herself to be. The things that she thought were right had been wrong. She hurt a lot of people with

She cannot come to terms with the fact that her son was brought back crippled. She questions why there is evil in the world and why good people have to suffer. Oriel does not understand why God had punished her since she was such a devoted and hard working woman. She becomes disappointed and angry with

Bevington states, "Obedient by instinct and training to patriarchal instruction, she is unprepared to cope with divided authority and so takes refuge in passivity.” Bevington says, “Ophelia is destroyed by meekly acquiescing in others’ desires.” Bevington sees Ophelia as a weak and emotional young

Fear is a hidden enemy. In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles the main character Gene kills his enemy at the end of the book. Was the reality that he killed his best friend,Finny,his enemy or was something more internal his enemy? Gene is afraid of realizing what his true enemy is and how to get rid of that enemy. At the end of the book while being at Devon Gene kills his enemy,the inner impulse and savage inside of him, throughout the the book Gene’s mental thoughts change because of this impulse. Gene changes from thinking that Finny is out to get him, to feeling like he owes Finny, to finally coming to terms with his inner impulse and savage.

In the novel Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, the author uses the characters internal and external conflicts to show that everybody has chains both physically and mentally.

At the scene of her death, Ophelia attempts to fashion herself royalty from nature, lavishly exploiting the beauty of the brook and constructing a coronet from weeds. Even as she contemplates suicide, Ophelia acts on her ingrained desire to demarcate herself as a noble, demonstrating the lengths to which she attempts to conform to the royal family. She knows, though, that she has already failed -- her premarital relations have sullied her, leaving her unable to fulfill her expectations. Juxtaposition of the “liberal shepherds” against “our cold maids” in line 194 reveals how the Queen and the rest of the nobility hold Ophelia to standards of purity instead of vulgar, impure ones, which tormented Ophelia before she decided to take her own life. Just as it refuses to tolerate the possibility that she was no longer virginal, the nobility refuses to acknowledge the fact that Ophelia lost her purity too by committing the sin of suicide.

This is the woman she might have become – warm, tolerant and imaginative. Instead she becomes jagged, benighted and imaginative. . . .Ophelia is made mad not only by circumstance but by something in herself. A personality forced into such deep hiding that it has seemed almost vacant, has all the time been so painfully open to impressions that they now usurp her reflexes and take possession of her. She has loved, or been prepared to love, the wrong man; her father has brought disaster on himself, and she has no mother: she is terribly lonely. (73-74)

In the post-apocalyptic novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a majority of the characters are portrayed as “evil” or would be in an ideal world. Though the main characters; the Man and the Boy do not show any “evil” behaviours I would presume that if at some point in time they became desperate enough for food – and desperate enough to live, that they would do what they needed to do in order to survive. As in, eating other humans and stealing, I do not think that this is necessarily being evil or good.

On this childlike nature and on Ophelia's inexperience everything depends. Her father and brother are jealously anxious for her because of her ignorance and innocence; and we resent