Picture a ballroom dance, beautiful, elegant, and intriguing. Now remove the dancers from the stage, and now the stage is empty, dull, and pointless. Much like a story without dynamic characters. In “The Most Dangerous” written by Richard Connell, dynamic characters effectively engage the audience. One character that shows this is Rainsford, a big game hunter lost on a tropical island. On the island he comes across General Zaroff who is also a hunter, but not in the conventional way. Beatrice (Tris) from the Divergent series, written by Veronica Roth, is also a great example of a dynamic character effectively engaging an audience. In post apocalyptic Chicago the society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to different morals - …show more content…
Connell writes, “The general was saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror” (Connell 34). This quotes shows Rainsford being terrified by his plight for the first time. The audience is left wondering if Zaroff’s mind games will be Rainsford’s Achilles heel. Knowing that Rainsford is a dynamic character adds suspense because he has to change physically and mentally to survive, and the audience doesn’t know if he is capable of that. If a character doesn’t change then the story is predictable and simple. Dynamic characters are a necessity in creating suspense and engaging an audience. Not only do dynamic characters create suspense, but they also make for a more complete story. Another way is that dynamic characters make for a more complete story. Had Beatrice not had been a dynamic character there would be no story. Once every year all sixteen-year-olds must select a faction in which they will dedicate their lives to, and put faction over family. Beatrice must decide staying with her family or be who she really is. Beatrice is also hiding a life threatening secret. What starts her change is when Beatrice chooses to switch out of her faction, Abnegation, and into Dauntless, and when she changes her name to Tris. In the beginning of the book Tris is dependent on others and is obedient.
The play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, takes place in the town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. This time in Salem, witchcraft was suspected of almost everyone in the town. Preserving one’s reputation becomes recurring concept throughout the play. The witchcraft accusations are usually made by people that have a biased view against others, which is why everyone tries to make sure their reputation looks well with the rest of the town. This concept is proven through the characters of John Proctor, Reverend Parris and Reverend Hale. These three characters go to great lengths to protect what the town of Salem thinks of them.
The use of a particular character can alter the way we perceive a story. Dynamic characters are usually the main characters in a story and the traits they have are usually what the entire story is based upon. They also bring most of the action in a reading.
"The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror." Rainsford comes to seek vengeance from the general making a toy of him by attempting to cause insanity due to the loss of nerve. "I will not lose my nerve. I will not." is the type of mental toughness Rainsford shows during Zaroff's tortures. "The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he said. "You have won the game."" The generals admit of defeat is not enough for Rainsford, thus Rainsford takes the situation to a brutal place and kills the General; "The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said, "Splendid! One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds.
The award-winning author, Luis Alberto Urrea, creator of The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North, and The Devil's Highway, describes The Devil’s Highway which occurred in May of 2001, one of many that impacted the desert on undocumented immigrants. which is a desert located beyond Sonora, Mexico. It is a desert which few turn to in able to cross over. A group of illegal Mexican were left for dead after attempting to cross; they were left stranded after traveling for days in the wrong direction, through mountains, desert and only a small amount of water along with a few personal items. The Devil’s Highway name was set out to one’s belief “bad medicine” (5). Even though the desert is an obstacle itself, there are still other physical
The witch trials in this play were based on actual events that happened in Salem in 1692. Arthur Miller’s 1953 The Crucible is a dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials. His reasoning for writing it was because everyone was hysteric about the Soviet Union and communism trying to make its way over to the United States. It was like a modern day witch hunt. In the play, Abigail Williams and a group of girls get caught in the woods. They were dancing and doing other things that puritan’s looked down upon. The girls were caught by Reverend Parris, and soon after his daughter became ‘ill’. The girls then started saying that witches came to them and told them to do bad things. They sent innocent people to hang. After studying Arthur Miller’s
I was pleased to have attended a lecture cosponsored by the Ethics Center, the Fresno State office of the president, the Fresno Bee and Valley PBS. The lecture began with Dr. Castro recognizing a few leaders on campus, including a past Fresno State president, Dr. John D. Welty and campus volunteer Mary Castro. Dr. Castro then mentioned a few things about Mr. Brooks stating that he is a columnist for the New York Times and an analyst for the PBS “News Hour” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Dr. Brooks also teaches at Yale University, one the finest university in the country. Dr. Castro continued by saying that he learned that Mr. Brooks office hours are from 9am to 1pm and how “cool” it sounded to him. I was surprised how many people attended the event. I was fortunate to find a seat. David Brooks mentioned how he has some remote roots in the Central Valley because his father grew in Chowchilla, CA but Mr. Brooks grew in New York.
Jimmy knows too well the agonies of abandonment. First, when his mother, Cecilia, ran away with Richard to pursue a better lifestyle. Then, due to his father’s, Damacio Baca, alcoholisms and violent behavior; he also had to leave Jimmy behind. In spite of the drawbacks from abandonment to being a maximum security prisoner in Arizona State Prison, Jimmy preserver’s the darkness of prison by overcoming his illiteracy. However Cecilia and Damacio is not as fortunate as their child; Cecilia is shot by Richard after confronting him for a divorce and Damacio chokes to death after he is released from the detox center(Baca 263). Therefore the most significant event in this section of the memoir, A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca is the death of Jimmy’s parents.
In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller involves a character named John Proctor, an even-tempered farmer, who cared about how others saw him as. Procter was a married man to Elizabeth Proctor and a father of three as well. Throughout the book, Procter is shown as a man obsessed with his status to protect his name. The following quote says “... there is evidence to suggest that he had a sharp and biting way with hypocrites. He was the kind of man--powerful of body, even-tempered, and not easily led….”, this shows he was the type of a person to unleash his temper with people often, although it was good because he was well known for revealing hypocrisy. This gave him honor in his town and respect by his
The U.S is seen as a safe haven for many refugees and immigrants around the world and that those who have made it are the “lucky ones” however, Author Aimee Phan discusses this common misconception in her novel We Should Never Meet. We Should Never Meet is a collection of short stories about how the Vietnamese War has effected its citizens still living in Vietnam or who fled to the United States in search of a safer home. In one short story, Emancipation, Phan gives readers a look into the life of Mai, a Vietnamese girl who was smuggled to America at the age of five. While the story is told by Mai in first person she is used more as median to show the differences in lives between her four friends Tiffany and Haun,
American playwright and theatrical figure in the twentieth-century, Arthur Miller, once said, “Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” Though he did not include this quote in the context of his famous work, The Crucible, his wise words can also be relevant in this play. The play takes place during the era of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. In his composition, he includes the story of Mr. and Mrs. Proctor, a married couple living outside of Salem in the time period of the trials. Abigail Williams, the family’s servant, has an affair with Mr. Proctor, which becomes a greatly kept secret before prior to the events of the play. Proctor then fully experiences the consequences of betraying his wife, which include shame of betrayal and fear of
Dynamic characters are characters who change throughout the course of their stories. One example is Guy Montag, the main character from Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. Guy Montag, at the beginning of Fahrenheit 451, is a follower of his society, a man who fears knowledge and difference. Throughout his story, however, he starts to become an entirely different man. He becomes a person who goes against his society, and he begins to want more than what his society offers. Another dynamic character is Lady Macbeth from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Lady Macbeth starts out as a strong female character who is ambitious, has no self-doubt, and is almost fearless. By the end of the play, she becomes a weaker character with a smaller voice.
Spending time in jail can really change a man. In the novel A Lesson Before Dying by award-winning author Ernest J Gaines, the story is about a young man with a challenge of a lifetime. Grant one of the main characters is given a task of changing a man. The novel takes place in Bayonne Louisiana, where the Civil Rights Act has not yet taken place. Segregation was still an issue at this time, and many of the characters throughout the novel face segregation head-on.
The book Beyond The Pale is about Two ordinary people (Travis Wilder and Grace Beckett) who get transported to this new and magic filled world that resembles earths medieval times. With there new found powers they hope to save this new world from its impending doom. (The pale king and his iron heart followers). I choose to write about Grace for my character analysis because I admire her intelligence, her cleverness, and her independent nature. Grace is intelligent because she always had a plan.
An example of a dynamic character is George. Throughout the story his purpose was to protect Lennie. Unlike Lennie, George does change over the course of the book. At the end of the book George takes a brave and courageous step by shooting Lennie. When he shoots Lennie, he spares him of the horrid death by Curley, but he also puts down their dream of a perfect world. Now that Lennie died, George can go and fulfill his reason of life.
A personality is a person’s unique everyday behavior, thoughts and feelings. To assess personality, there are different ways it can be done: therapy, personality matching, mental disorders, projective testing and etc. In I Heart Huckabee’s, they use several different assessments on Albert and Tommy the two main characters. The number one method the existential detectives used was personality matching. You match two people with many similarities; put them together in the same environment. Personality matching could be used with online dating, group projects and for this movie it put two men together who look at things in a physiology connection.