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Literary Devices 101: Antagonist

Antagonist

The antagonist is a character in a story or poem that deceives, frustrates, or works against the main character in some way.

Example:

A Doll’s House, Acts 1 through 3

Krogstad: “Maybe. But matters of business--such business as you and I have had together--do you think I don’t understand that? Very well. Do as you please. But let me tell you this--if I lose my position a second time, you shall lose yours with me.”

Krogstad: “I will tell you. I want to rehabilitate myself, Mrs. Helmer; I want to get on; and in that your husband must help me. For the last year and a half I have not had a hand in anything dishonourable, amid all that time I have been struggling in most restricted circumstances. I was content to work my way up step by step. Now I am turned out, and I am not going to be satisfied with merely being taken into favour again. I want to get on, I tell you. I want to get into the Bank again, in a higher position. Your husband must make a place for me. . . .”

Torvald: “Now you have destroyed all my happiness. You have ruined all my future. It is horrible to think of! I am in the power of an unscrupulous man; he can do what he likes with me, ask anything he likes of me, give me any orders he pleases--I dare not refuse. And I must sink to such miserable depths because of a thoughtless woman!”

Function: Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House is, at first glance, deceptively simple. It is centered upon the lives of Nora Helmer and her husband, Torvald, as well as the conflicts that embroil Nora throughout the play. The primary, and most conspicuous, of Nora’s antagonists is Krogstad. He provides the central conflict of the play by first threatening to expose her secret, should she fail to pay her debt, and then by declaring that she no longer had the choice of paying the debt and keeping her secret--she had to tell Torvald of her “sin.” As shown in the second example, Krogstad believes that the latter is the only means by which he may fully regain his dignity.

While Krogstad supplies the main conflict in terms of the plot, Torvald is the source of Nora’s most significant affliction. His hypocritical idealism and selfishness prevent Nora from developing into a substantial, mature human being during their eight years of marriage. Torvald’s unfair judgment of and lack of respect for his wife is made manifest in the last example, when he explodes after learning of her secret. By crippling her maturation during their marriage and finally by rejecting her moral sacrifice for him, Torvald deals the most injurious blows to the play’s protagonist.

By juxtaposing Torvald and Krogstad as Nora’s antagonists, Ibsen elevates A Doll’s House from the level of a melodrama to that of a serious reflection of the flaws inherent in 19th century gender roles. While Krogstad is representative of life’s many inconveniences, Torvald embodies the misogynistic subjugation that has unfortunately prevailed throughout much of human history.

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Literary Devices 101: Allegory

I came across my notebook from the AP Literature course I took in high school and decided to replicate my notes on literary devices here, both for my continued erudition and for all of writeblr/studyblr. Cheers!

Allegory

An allegory is a sustained and circumscribed analogy between a subject and an image to which it is compared

Example: The tree shuddered as [the bull] banged it with his skull, and he pivoted around it, stumbling . . . . He struck too low, and even in my terror I understood that he would always strike too low . . . I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist.

Function: In John Gardner’s Grendel, the ancient Anglo-Saxon tale of Beowulf is modernized, its protagonist reversed. In the novel, Grendel is the main character, rather than Beowulf. Gardner also focuses on updating the style in which the story is told, and often slips into philosophical musings via literary devices such as the allegory.

In the above passage, Gardner uses the symbols of the bull and the tree in an allegory relating to the modernist philosophy of solipsism. As Grendel is simultaneously immobilized by both the passive and aggressive mechanics of nature, he searches among the chaos for some kernel of truth and security in the form of his mother. When she fails to materialize, Grendel makes the above revelation: that he alone exists.

However, as we see a few pages later, the existence of the human directly contradicts Grendel’s theory. This can be seen as a discredit to the philosophy of solipsism overall. It may also represent Grendel’s constant search for his purpose--a search that is, coincidentally, constantly thwarted throughout the novel. Once he is proven wrong, he grasps for another theory, another thread of reasoning to explain his existence: nihilism. But that, too, is discredited throughout the novel by similar allegories. Through Grendel, Gardner seemingly attributes all theories for and of existence as futile and meaningless, for they may always be disproved.