Character Comparison of the Protagonists Assignment PDF
6 Pages1527 Words35 Views
Added on 2021-05-31
Character Comparison of the Protagonists Assignment PDF
Added on 2021-05-31
ShareRelated Documents
Name of Student Prompt Number:Date:CHARACTER COMPARISON OF THE PROTAGONISTSName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor note:
Name of Student Prompt Number:Date:Race, gender, colour, creed, sexual orientation, religion, nationality and similar othernotions define an individual, at least that was the commonly held belief in the pre modern erawhen judging people according to their physical appearance or preferential choices becamecommon practice. However in the postmodern period there were more regions of grey, andstrictly black or white, right or wrong, was becoming obsolete.The figure of flâneur was developed in the 19th century in various novels, and was animportant part of the work on French Culture by Walter Benjamin. The surrealists of the eraalso had deep interest into the concept and had been revisiting the figure several timesthrough their works. The traditional figure that has been projected as the figure of Flâneur is amale pedestrian with typical characteristics of an urban man, the man of “leisure” (Ferguson).The personification of being free and doing “nothing” to “observe” others was the point.However this archetypal traditional figure of Flâneur has been challenged by the gendermovements and rights activists and the more days has passed different portrayals of the figureof flâneur has been developed .The two works which are compared in this paper is Giovanni’s room and The Passing.In both of these works the authors have portrayed their protagonists who does not conform tothe traditional hero of the traditional novels. Rather people with challenges in their lifestylethat is related to their genders, colour an d their preference of sexuality is seen to be thecentral themes of the essays,Giovanni is a person who have been in the dilemma of his own sexual choice from thebeginning till the end. The man has encountered with men and women and can be understoodby the reader as bisexual. However it is a fact that he himself tries to disprove his sexualidentity by forcing sexual intercourse with a woman and then leaving that woman only to
Name of Student Prompt Number:Date:fulfil his own desire of getting answer about his own sexual identity. David who is theprotagonist of the novel himself shows distresses which can be traced back to the event of thedeath of his mother. “My mother had been carried to the graveyard when I was five. Iscarcely remember her at all, yet she figured in my nightmares, bünd with worms, her hair asdry as metal and brittle as a twig, straining to press me against her body; that body soputrescent, so sickening soft, that it opened, as I clawed and cried, into a breach so enormousas to swallow me alive” (Baldwin). Such disturbing scenes are bound to challenge a child,although it is a fact that such ghastly imagination of one’s own mother is rarely seen. WhenDavid decides to visit France to “find himself”, it typically reminds one of the figure offlâneur. A person who is in a journey to look for oneself, to understand the own self and thepeople who are around. A person who is doing “nothing” in order to understand what is bestto be done. David already had a sexual experience with a boy when he started to discover hissexuality. In Paris a new chapter starts for the man when he meets Giovanni in Guillame’sgay bar. The two men patches well and soon a chemistry develops. The character is stillconforming to the figure of flâneur in spite of being different in terms of sexuality. Again itcan be interpreted that the character shifts from conforming to the features of a flâneur by nomore wanting to be just a spectator and actually participating in social activities to bringabout the necessary changes.“I'm very fond of Giovanni. You didn't see him at his best tonight, but he's a very niceman.' I laughed; covered by the night, emboldened by Hella's body and my own, andprotected by the tone of my voice, I found great relief in adding: 'I love him, in a way. I reallydo” (Baldwin). This statement of David while being in the bed romantically close to Hella,the lady love he pursues because of his disenchantment about gay relationships, bringsseveral layers to the character of the protagonist. He breaks away from the figure of theflâneur. He is not merely a spectator, he is one of the active players in the game.
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
Literature and Feminism: Breaking the Conventional Normslg...
|10
|3011
|431
The Lady’s Dressing Roomlg...
|6
|1512
|80
Draft on Quotation from “The Stranger” by Albert Camus | Doclg...
|3
|407
|18
Masculinity and Femininitylg...
|5
|926
|254
ATSGC3848 GENDER INEQUALITYlg...
|8
|1878
|263
essay on gender roles of Lucy and Mina in novel PDFlg...
|7
|2086
|218