Authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald accomplish character development through physical appearance, speech and actions, reaction of the character to other characters, and the character's inner thoughts and feelings. Moreover, authors often have their characters change over time, thus what makes the characters dynamic as opposed to static. In "The Four Fists," when Fitzgerald established the character of Samuel Meredith, he described the character of Samuel to be arrogant, …show more content…
Samuel selfishly taught of getting Marjorie on his own and never considered the fact she’s married. He didn’t even think about what will happen to him and Marjorie if they got caught by her husband. He thought of himself as Marjorie's hero and rescued her from a husband who apparently neglected her. But after he got punched, he brood over the opposite scenario; that he was the villain and Marjorie's husband was the hero instead, “The situation had miraculously and entirely changed—a moment before Samuel had seemed to himself heroic; now he seemed the cad, the outsider, and Marjorie's husband, silhouetted against the lights of the little house, the eternal heroic figure, the defender of his home.” Lastly, the fourth and final “fist” taught him the importance of the little things in life. It came from a man who Samuel’s company was trying to buy out his land. He got too fixated on the continuous succession of his goals in life that he wasn’t aware of people getting affected by it, “…a man's duty to his family may make a rigid corpse seem a selfish indulgence of his own righteousness. Samuel thought mostly of his family, yet he never really wavered.” With all of these “fists” that Samuel got, he decided to end things right. “Within a week things had happened. Hamil quarrelled furiously and violently defended his scheme. He was summoned to New York and spent a bad half-hour on the carpet in Peter Carhart's office. He broke with the Carhart interests in July, and in August Samuel Meredith, at thirty-five years old, was, to all intents, made Carhart's partner. The fourth fist had done its work.” He acknowledged all of these as his valuable life lessons and thus what makes his life a success. Now, whenever he makes an important decision, he rubs his hand along his chin to feel the permanent lump left that reminds himself of the four “fists.” As unpleasant it is for