The Portrayal Of Male Characters Essay Research

The Portrayal Of Male Characters Essay, Research Paper

Have you ever wondered how Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays their male characters in their novels and short stories. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald portray their males in quite different ways. The authors use various aspects to make their characters very distinguishable by such characteristics as: lack of compassion, narrative point of view, and their overall person as a whole.

Ernest Hemingway portrays his male characters to be very caring and thoughtful people. In the novel The Old Man and the Sea, there are two main male characters, Santiago and a boy with whom he fishes. Santiago is very mild mannered and very considerate man. He portrayed this when the boy couldn’t fish with Santiago because he had no luck in catching fish. He did not get mad at the boy, but felt that the boy should be with a crew that is catching fish. This showed that he wanted the best for the boy no matter what. Santiago said, “You’re with a lucky boat. Stay with them.”(Old Man, 10) Secondly Santiago felt a lot of remorse for catching such a majestic animal for such a futile end. He felt very proud that he broke his streak of not catching fish, but now that the sharks had ripped apart the marlin he felt very sorry, “I shouldn’t have gone out so far, fish, Neither for you nor for me I m sorry, fish.” (Old Man, 110) This showed the great compassion that Santiago had for the animal.

Also the short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway, the older waiter was a very thoughtful and considerate person. He felt that, “I am one of those who like to stay late at the cafe, with all those who do not want to go to bed.”(Well-Lighted, 32) This showed his compassionate side, because the younger waiter didn’t want to stay because it was disrupting his life too much and the waiter was only thinking of himself. In contrast the older waiter felt that he should be there if anybody needed a good relaxed atmosphere to grab a drink. This showed the compassion that he held for people that he doesn’t even know.

In contrast to Hemingway, Fitzgerald’s characters were primarily thinking of themselves and what they could gain without thinking twice about whom they might be hurting. Firstly, in the novel The Great Gatsby Tom abused his wife, “Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” (Gatsby, 41) This shows how thoughtless and hurtful Tom could be toward his wife. Also Tom cheated on his wife throughout the whole novel showing that he had no real compassion for his wife or the vows of his marriage. These actions prove that Tom had no respect for his wife and show that he was a very inconsiderate person. Tom also portrayed himself as a very inconsiderate man when he said, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.”(Gatsby, 11) This shows that he had to prove that he could overpower Nick at any time if he felt like it. Furthermore, he shows no compassion for Nick’s self esteem and threw it in Nick’s face.

Another character in the novel, The Great Gatsby was a character named Jay Gatsby. Jay was a very mysterious man. Throughout the whole novel he was very discreet with getting phone calls from people that he didn’t care to talk to in front of anybody. Jay’s first sign of showing no compassion was when he started to get close to his old flame, Daisy. He showed no regards that she was married to Tom, and that she might be totally in love with Tom. During his pursuit of Daisy he found nothing wrong with waking one of his servants from their sleep to play the piano for Daisy. The servant didn’t play very well, but Gatsby proceeded anyway, ” I’m all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn’t play. I’m all out of prac—’ Don’t talk so much old sport,’ commanded Gatsby. Play!’”(Great Gatsby, 100) This just shows how inconsiderate Gatsby was to other people when he wants something. Throughout the whole novel he never considered how other people felt, but only what he could gain from them.

The lack of compassion was very prevalent in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ernest Hemingway on the other hand portrayed his characters’ to be very nice and thoughtful people.

The narrative point of view that the authors took contributed greatly to the effect at which the reader perceives the characters. When the reader is reading the novels the narrative point of view the authors takes hides or brandishes the character flaws of the characters.

Firstly, Ernest Hemingway made use of the omniscient narrative view. This shows what the characters are thinking and all the details to the stories that are otherwise left out. Santiago, the main character of The Old Man and the Sea was portrayed very effectively by sayings such as, “That was the saddest thing I have ever saw with them, the old man thought.” (Old Man, 50) This shows insight into how thoughtful a man Santiago was, which the reader normally would not have known. Another point could be when the old man saw the turtle swimming by and thought of how badly people thought of turtles, “But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs.”(Old Man, 37). This quote also should insight into how Ernest Hemingway wanted his character, Santiago, to be portrayed. The use of an omniscient narrative point of view leads the reader to feel that they know actually what