Character Study on Duddy Kravitz Essay

Before one begins to truly understand who Dallas Winston really is, it’s necessary to first examine how he was viewed by his friends as being cold-hearted and tough. While trying to figure him out, Pony comments, “It would be a miracle if Dally loved anything. The fight for self-preservation had hardened him beyond caring.” (Hinton, 1995, p.g. 59). Because Dally’s been through so much in his life, he’s put walls around himself which makes him seem indifferent and helps to keep himself stable. Without making himself seem cold-hearted, he’d be revealing his true nature and would ruin the reputation he has amongst his friends. This can also relate to why Dally appears to be tough. As we were being introduced to Dallas in the beginning of the book, the main character Ponyboy describes him by saying, “Dally had spent three years on the wild side of New York and had been arrested at the age of ten. He was tougher than the rest of us- tougher, colder, meaner.” (Hinton, 1995, p.g. 10). This shows the audience that Dally has a reputation for being tough and mean by the way that he was arrested at such a young age. To be able to live on the rougher side of New York, toughness is also almost a staple trait one must have. His past has made his friends think that this is his true self when in all reality, he is actually very loving.

He was raised to listen, be respectful, be a great listener and more, which is all a part of being disciplined. Not only was he disciplined, but a great listener, and he felt guilty also, he never let go of these character traits throughout the book.

Unintelligent people are very sympathetic. In addition to these, he also never changes, he is static, and he is a flat character. All he wants is to get more respect in society.

In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is a young American Indian that is shy and has low self-esteem, and has a few issues physically and his surroundings. He has a best friend named Rowdy. Rowdy is rude and has no emotion to any situation. What many people at the reservation don’t know is that Rowdy and Junior have real problems at home with their parents. The differences between Rowdy and Junior are the family and the personalities.

In order to acquire wealth, Duddy engages in acts of dishonesty and deceit. He does this by exploiting the weaknesses of his friends, such as Virgil Roseboro and Yvette Durelle, while completely disregarding the fact that by doing this, his dignity and

These personality traits caused him to be angry and disgusted with the new culture. We can see in the novel on page 152 paragraph two it says “ a sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to take up his machete and wipe out the

the personality of his duchess, he is shown to be a heartless, arrogant man. His complete

Duddy shows signs of his disinterest in the well being of others in his interactions with other characters in the novel. The first character to see the bad side of Duddy was Milty Halpirin. When Duddy was 13, he went to a parochial school in which he led a gang of boys called ‘The Warriors’. Young Milty wished to join Duddy’s gang. Duddy picked on Milty in a very mean way.

He is self-centered because he does not care about hurting others along the way. He only cares about getting what he wants, for example, he was offered a plane ticket but he did not accept it and choose to walk to his destination. Being offered a free ticket and turning it down, shows that he wants to do things his own way at the risk of hurting others.

He grew up as the kid with the eagerness to learn and experience life along with the trait of intelligence which he used to his advantage. Sometimes he would give a random quote or fact out of the blue with no connection to the current topic. People would make fun of him out of jealousy to his knowledge

being “combative, and often let his feelings dictate his reactions and his favorite type of

That could be attributed to Hawthorne’s background, and the era in which this story was written. Other qualities which he exhibits are perfectionism, excessive devotion to work, and miserliness toward others.

Both Dade and Julian where fixated on proving themselves right and defending their beliefs about

Throughout the novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Duddy makes decisions that overall define who he is as a person. These actions show that at times he is moral and his actions can be considered to be good. Though what he does can be good, it can also be considered to be quite immoral or bad.

How he acts towards his crew, for example, appears to be out of a jealously – they are whole and he is not. For this reason, he feels that he must make up for it by being stronger and more powerful than they are. He tries to control the men, for if he can control them then he is greater than they are, though they are complete and he is not.