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Here Lies Jacques Olivant Character Analysis

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The main character in “Was it a Dream?” is a very complex man, with many attributes hidden within the story. He seems to be in denial about the truth, naive when it comes to others actions and indecisive with the split decisions that he makes.

Firstly, the man seems ignorant to what people are actually like during their lives, when the truth is right in front of him. There is a few points in the story where you can infer that he ignores the issue at hand. One large issue incompasses the man in the grave Jacques Olivant. His epitaph read “ Here lies Jacques Olivant who died at the age of fifty-one. He loved his family, was kind and honorable, and died in the grace of the lord.” (pg 152). After he changed it the epitaph read “ Here reposes Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He hastened his father’s death by his unkindness, as he wished to inherit his fortune; he tortured his wife, tormented his children, deceived his neighbour, robbed everyone he could, and died wretched” (pg 152). All three of these statements collectively lead to the idea that Jacques is the man’s father. Otherwise he would not know this about Jacques’ life and that he was a horrible person. With this information he is ignorant because he wrote statements that change Jacques character into something he was not. …show more content…

Her epitaph read “She loved, was loved, and died.” and once changed read “ Having gone out in the rain one day in order to deceive her lover, she caught cold and died.” (pg 153). These lines show that he was naive because he didn’t realize that she was going out to cheat on him. Furthermore, he would have found out afterwards that she was cheated, for those words to appear in his dream and still choose to write something that was not true. Without realizing what she was doing or not confronting her about it once he did know he had an impact on her

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