The Protagonist
Michael Blackwell
Professor Helen Driver
English 1302
January 28, 2013
The Protagonist Have you ever picked up a book and within minutes you couldn’t put it down? Have you felt a deep connection with a character, yet at the same time; not understood why the characters do the things they do? The way we connect with our favorite characters is no accident. The author’s resolve when writing is for the reader to connect with the protagonist of their stories. I know that The author of “Circumcision” Pramoedya (Prah-MOO-dia) Ananta Toer exploits his “narrator” as his protagonist because: he is the most central character in the story, the author uses him to evoke the reader’s emotions and feelings, and the narrator goes through trials and tribulations, and creates a change in his character and transforms him in the story. I could easily tell that the narrator was the most central character in the short story “Circumcision”. With the opening of the first sentence, “I spent my evenings at the local prayer house learning to recite the Quran.” The narrator starts to speak in the first person point of view. Although this is not a clear indication of him being the central character, it does have the reader wondering. Throughout the story the author keeps repeating the words “my” and “I”, and once again that really puts emphasis on what the main character is doing and the connection with the narrator. As the author develops the narrator’s character he defines him as a young Muslim kid who seems to be between the ages of eight and thirteen. Most of the following pages of the story are all about how the narrator is going to be circumcised. The author uses the narrator to tell his story and employs the sequences of events in his plot. As the main character of the story, the narrator is built up through the craft of his author. The author uses his narrator to grab the attention of the audience and gradually build commonality with the reader. When the author makes his
Professor Helen Driver
English 1302
January 28, 2013
The Protagonist Have you ever picked up a book and within minutes you couldn’t put it down? Have you felt a deep connection with a character, yet at the same time; not understood why the characters do the things they do? The way we connect with our favorite characters is no accident. The author’s resolve when writing is for the reader to connect with the protagonist of their stories. I know that The author of “Circumcision” Pramoedya (Prah-MOO-dia) Ananta Toer exploits his “narrator” as his protagonist because: he is the most central character in the story, the author uses him to evoke the reader’s emotions and feelings, and the narrator goes through trials and tribulations, and creates a change in his character and transforms him in the story. I could easily tell that the narrator was the most central character in the short story “Circumcision”. With the opening of the first sentence, “I spent my evenings at the local prayer house learning to recite the Quran.” The narrator starts to speak in the first person point of view. Although this is not a clear indication of him being the central character, it does have the reader wondering. Throughout the story the author keeps repeating the words “my” and “I”, and once again that really puts emphasis on what the main character is doing and the connection with the narrator. As the author develops the narrator’s character he defines him as a young Muslim kid who seems to be between the ages of eight and thirteen. Most of the following pages of the story are all about how the narrator is going to be circumcised. The author uses the narrator to tell his story and employs the sequences of events in his plot. As the main character of the story, the narrator is built up through the craft of his author. The author uses his narrator to grab the attention of the audience and gradually build commonality with the reader. When the author makes his