Questions tagged [character-analysis]
Questions relating to the analysis of characters in works of literature: for example, their traits, construction, or other aspects. This tag should be used together with any relevant work, series, or author tags.
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What are the "eighteen methods of arranging Minerva's tresses"?
In Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, Jean Passepartout, Phileas Fogg's new servant, is introduced. We're given a description, which includes a descrption of his hair:
As for Jean, also known ...
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Is there an in-universe explanation for the contradictory language and euphemisms used in *The Screwtape Letters*?
For example, terms like "the patient," "our Father below," and Screwtape's affectionate language towards Wormwood. It actually strikes me as oddly similar to the "doublethink&...
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Is the character named Boorman supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?
In analogy with the question Is the character named Laarmans supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?, it is also possible to ask whether Boorman is the same character in the novels in ...
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Why is Antonio the changeling?
Towards the end of The Changeling (1653), after De Flores stabs Beatrice-Joanna and then reveals that the two of them have been murderers and lovers, the dying Beatrice-Joanna says to her shocked ...
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The Netherlands vs Belgium in Elsschot's Cheese
Frans Laarmans, the protagonist of Willem Elsschot's Cheese, pursues and obtains a job as the Belgian sales representative for a large Dutch cheese manufacturing enterprise. Cultural and other ...
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How to understand Doña Vera's decision to flee Austria for Mexico?
One of the major characters in Anita Desai's The Zigzag Way is Doña Vera, the Austrian widow of a Mexican silver baron. The couple had met and married in Vienna just prior to the outbreak of World War ...
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Why does Heep refer to Copperfield sometimes as mister and sometimes as master?
In Dickens' David Copperfield, the character Uriah Heep refers to David sometimes as "Mister Copperfield" and sometimes as "Master Copperfield." Other times, he makes a point to ...
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Is the character named Laarmans supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?
The protagonist and first-person narrator of Elsschot's delicious Cheese (1933) is a hapless clerk named Frans Laarmans who finds himself unexpectedly tasked with selling twenty tons of imported full-...
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Why does Sir Walter comment that Colonel Wallis is "not an ill-looking man" in "Persuasion"?
In Jane Austen's Persuasion, when explaining the backstory of the estranged cousin Mr. Elliot , who is seeking a reconcilliation, we are given this description of a friend of Mr. Elliot:
The ...
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How does the Crofts' style of driving reflect on their general guidance of affairs?
In Jane Austen's Persuasion, when Anne Elliot is getting a ride with Mrs. and Admiral Croft, she makes this observation about the Crofts' way of driving, and that is may represent a more general ...
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What roles do the minor characters play in 'Of Mice and Men'? [closed]
The minor characters (characters except George and Lennie) highlight the themes of the story (the theme of barriers (freedom and confinement) and the theme of dreams) by creating tension and ...
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Why did the Superintendent compare Smiley to an abbey?
From John Le Carré's Smiley's People:
An abbey, the Superintendent decided. That’s what he was, an abbey. He would work that into his sermon the next time his turn came around. An abbey, made up of ...
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The Call In Leadership and Literature [closed]
Some of the greatest books I have ever read are in the Book of the Dun Cow novel series, where the main character is a rooster in charge who keeps time in the barnyard through his canonical hour crows ...
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Does Mary Bennet undergo any sort of character development in "Pride and Prejudice"?
In Pride and Prejudice, of the five Bennet sisters, the one we see the least of is Mary. (Her name appears fewer than forty times in the whole book.) Mary has a reputation for sitting with her books, ...
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Are Thomas Bernhard's (highly critical) opinions of other German/Austrian authors in "Extinction" his own?
I've been reading "Extinction" (Auslöschung) by Bernhard, in which the main character (Franz-Josef Murau) expounds, highly critically, on Goethe, Thomas Mann, Musil, etc. All of them are ...
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