The Brief History Of The Dead Comparative Analysis

The theme of dealing with adversity is present in many novels, since the protagonist simply must have troubles for the novel to be interesting! In Lean on Pete and The Brief History of the Dead, the protagonists, Charley and Laura, spend the entire novels dealing with adversity. Similarly, in the beginning of their novels, Charley and Laura are with friends and/or family. Then, in a series of events, they are separated from said friends and/or family and must embark on a journey to find them. On said journey, Charley and Laura both have to overcome many challenges and deal with adversity in similar ways. First, they have a common goal: to find someone. Next, they both deal with having little to no resources while on their journey. Finally, they deal with a majority of their journeys completely alone, which leads to internal conflict. Willy Vlautin and Kevin Brockmeier both portray the theme of dealing with adversity by having the protagonists of their novels, Lean on Pete and The Brief History of the Dead, go through similar journeys of searching for something or someone alone, with little to no resources. …show more content…
In Lean on Pete, Willy Vlautin uses Charley’s character to portray a younger, troubled, and less mature character to show how someone like that may deal with adversity in rash ways. The Brief History of the Dead, however, goes in the opposite direction with Laura. She is older, mature, and thinks over all of the actions she takes on her journey. Even though they both deal with it in different ways, Charley and Laura both go through almost the same adversities. They both must search for someone, alone, and with little to no resources. This also provokes an internal conflict within both of them. Vlautin and Brockmeier’s novels and protagonists dealing with adversity overlap in such a way that it makes the reader think about how they deal with adversity