The True Protagonist: A Character Analysis

Our world deals with many elements that make our time on Earth more interesting. Every single day each person has the opportunity to make their own decisions. Each person chooses their own path to go down, which can lead to a superior and confide path or the diatribe and stingy trail (Hook). Every person in the world, reputable or execrable, have their own flaws. There is an inadequacy in each person can make it hard to decipher if a character is a true protagonist. In the short story’s “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, and “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, it can be hard for the readers to tell who the true protagonist is in each of the plots (Transition). Imperfections and eccentric ways of …show more content…
“He was born when I was six and was, from the outset, a disappointment,” (page number). The narrator of the story spends the whole time trying to make Doodle prime. Doodle was put up to tasks that the narrator assigned, which started as a simple mission of crawling where “(Doodle) began to move himself, straining terribly. The doctor said that with his weak heart this strain would probably kill him, but it didn't” (page number). The tasks start getting bigger which makes his risk of death higher. In the final part of the story the storyteller pushes his brother too far and he took a hard fall which killed his brother. The narrator's moral frailty is that he is ashamed of his brother. A true protagonist would not care that they have disabled brother, but they would help them achieve anything to their best ability. In the “Scarlet Ibis” the narrator is helping his brother to get better for selfish reasons and not because Doodle wants it. Protagonist also know when they are pushing someone too far, and he storyteller does not. In the end the narrator kills his brother by pushing him too hard which will cause an emotional damage on the narrator, his family, and also he has ruined Doodles chance to live the rest of his life. The relater of this story is the protagonist of this story even through all the damage he has caused and his selfish ways because he did …show more content…
When Montresor finishes his task he has heartbroken not only the wife of Montresor but himself. He says “(his) heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so… For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!” (page #). This story is narrated by Montresor who is unreliable which makes the decision of whether he is a protagonist harder. Along with being unreliable he also has a moral weakness of the desire of vengeance through his cunning ways. The undependable narrator states that Fortunato has put Montresor through a “thousand injuries” which he beared the best he could until ”(Fortunato) ventured upon insult (he) vowed revenge” (page #). With Montresor's deceiving ways and with Fortunato being intoxicated Montresor gets his revenge by essentially burying Fortunato alive. Montresor is essentially psychotic but in his mind he is helping himself and others by getting rid of Fortunato. His moral weakness goes away once the killing of Fortunato was completed, but he live in sorrow along with the wife of Fortunato. He is the “hero” and “villain” of this story in his mind. Montresor is not a sound person so in his mind he helped everyone by killing him and also hurting them at the same time. He is the overall protagonist because without looking at the ending emotions Montresor still feels as