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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.

2 votes
0 answers
38 views

Did Nina and Victor have a romantic connection or was it just built in his head?

Nabokovs Dozen, the short story 'Spring in Fialta'. The narrator is seemingly unreliable and usually the romantic parts are just his own interpretation of the event rather than her actual demeanor, ...
4 votes
5 answers
1k views

Was Macbeth considering murdering Duncan before Lady Macbeth encouraged him to?

In Macbeth, after announcing that he will go be a harbinger for Duncan and make things ready for him at Inverness, Macbeth says this aside to himself: Macbeth [Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! that ...
5 votes
1 answer
68 views

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 ...
5 votes
1 answer
84 views

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 ...
5 votes
1 answer
236 views

Is Raymond having an affair with Masson's wife?

When Raymond, Meursault, and Marie went to visit Raymond's friend, Masson, they decide to go to swim after a brief time but Masson's wife and Raymond refuse the idea and rather stay at the bungalow. ...
4 votes
1 answer
140 views

Why did all of the Taggart Transcontinental engineers volunteer to drive the first train on the John Galt Line?

Early on in the book, the engineer running the Comet stopped for hours at a broken signal and just sat there passively waiting for someone to tell him what to do. However, later we see that almost ...
3 votes
0 answers
57 views

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&...
5 votes
3 answers
556 views

In the Brothers Karamazov, did Dostoyevsky take those characters out of real life?

In the novel The Brothers Karamazov, did the writer take those characters out of real life? Or did he just build the characters with time?
3 votes
1 answer
113 views

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 ...
4 votes
1 answer
87 views

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-...
4 votes
1 answer
96 views

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 ...
4 votes
0 answers
41 views

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 ...
2 votes
0 answers
17 views

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 ...
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

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 ...
4 votes
1 answer
130 views

Why does Georgia connect so well with the clown's song?

In Alice Oseman's Loveless, after several failed scenes where Georgia has difficulty acting romantic roles, Pip gets her to try being the clown in Twelfth Night. This goes swimmingly: "Come away,...

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