Submitted by: Submitted by yankees3434
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Category: Literature
Date Submitted: 02/11/2014 05:50 PM
Characterization between “The Rocking Horse” and “The Destructors”
Joshua A. Metzger
Liberty University
Abstract
“The Rocking Horse Winner” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about a kid named Paul who tries to earn his mother’s love by gaining money from horse races, so this will help them financially. This leads Paul to be overwhelmed with anxiety and fear who eventually dies as a result of overworking himself. “The Destructors” Graham Greene is about a gang leader named Taylor who wants to burn down the house of Old Misery. Taylor wants to bring down the expense of someone else for personal gain and power. Both these protagonists in their respective stories display signs of characterization to some extent.
The protagonists of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Rocking Horse Winner” (Paul) and Graham Greene’s “The Destructors” (Trevor) have similar and different character traits. Characterization is general background and description of how a character‘s feelings, ideas, and beliefs. Characterization is the representation of a character. Both authors have used this concept to convey the main character in a very similar way.
Paul is the protagonist in “The Rocking Horse Winner”. Paul is a boy who tries to help his unloving mother financially and ends up killing himself. Paul has different character traits throughout the story. Trevor is the protagonist in “The Destructors”. Trevor is the leader of the Wormsley Common Gang who leads his gang on a mission to burn down the house of Old Misery, who has the last middle-class house on the block. These characters have major characteristic changes throughout the stories. Below are some examples of how these characters acted similarly and how they changed over the course of the story.
One major similarity in the characterization between Paul and Trevor were their motivation. Paul was someone who felt a lack of love from his mother and as a result he wants to accomplish one goal, which is to finally become lucky. This...