Why We Like the Story Anyway:
Teaching the Development of Unsympathetic Protagonists
Nathan Gower
Fiction relies heavily on a writer-reader relationship, requiring its writers to develop
characters and stories that readers can both accept and embrace. A safe approach, then, asks the
writer to create sympathetic, likeable protagonists to maintain this writer-reader relationship. While
creating sympathetic protagonists may be the safest route for a fiction writer, one cannot ignore John
Gardner’s admonition:
The first and last important rule for the creative writer . . . is that though there may be
rules (formulas) for ordinary, easily publishable fiction – imitation fiction – there are
no
rules for real fiction, any more than there are rules for serious visual art or musical
composition. . . . There are no rules. Name one, and instantly some literary artist will
offer us some new work that breaks the rule yet persuades us. (7-8)
As a fiction writer and teacher of creative writing, I was greatly comforted by Gardner’s
advice when I began noticing a pattern developing in my own short fiction, as well as that of many
of my students: many contemporary protagonists, for complex reasons often difficult to articulate,
are often simply unlikable. While all fully-developed characters are inevitably flawed, more and
more seem to be prejudiced, passive, and often cruel for cruelty’s sake. One of my protagonists, for
example, leaves his wife; not figuratively, as one might assume, but quite literally: he abandons her
at the supermarket and never looks back. What a jerk! I say to myself; but I keep writing anyway.
Why?
It has been my experience that fiction writers often have very little conscious control over the
characters they produce. Sure, we may begin with the basic framework for a character, an informal
character sketch, but as the protagonist begins to develop, he or she often rebels against our
preconceived notions of who he or she should be. In his memoir on the craft of fiction, Stephen
King reflects on this issue in his own writing: “For me, what happens to characters as a story
progresses depends solely on what I discover about them as I go along – how they grow, in other
words. Sometimes they grow a little. If they grow a lot, they begin to influence the course of the
story instead of the other way around” (190). For fiction writers like King who believe inherently in
free will, it should come as no surprise that fictional characters should not wish to conform to what
we thought they would be.
While there may be risks involved in writing stories with unsympathetic protagonists,
examples from our literature show us that certain stories simply would not work without them. Can
we imagine Shakespeare’s Macbeth more civil, or Dostoevsky’s underground man less brash? These
unsympathetic characters – like them or not – are interesting to read about, and essential to write
about. The question is not whether such protagonists should ever be written, but how a writer
successfully creates, develops, and engages readers in such characters.
And therein lies the problem; identifying an unsympathetic protagonist is easy, but
understanding the writer’s techniques in employing the character can be daunting. In teaching the
craft, it has been my experience that students are often able to understand – through reading and
their own intuition – the appeal of writing unsympathetic protagonists. However, there seems to be a
disconnect between their appreciation of unsympathetic characters and the parameters with which
such characters must be employed. An often successful strategy I have used in the classroom is to
first help students understand how to read stories that make use of unsympathetic characters. Then,
we move towards thinking critically about how the stories are redeemed. Finally, students turn
attention to attempts at adapting such characters to their own fiction.
Before that process begins, though, there are two main factors student writers must consider
that will govern how they read about, think about, and write about such characters. First, the writer
must stay true to his or her character at all costs; if the protagonist wants to leave his wife stranded at
the supermarket, the writer must allow him to do so. However harsh the action may seem, there is a
reason for the character’s unpleasant desires. This leads to the second factor: the writer must be able
to eventually understand why his or her character is unsympathetic; in other words, the protagonist’s
character flaws must ultimately serve the story.
While each character is unique, most unsympathetic protagonists fall, I believe, into three
categories: the prejudiced protagonist, the passive protagonist, and the cruel protagonist. As an
exercise in thinking critically about such characters, I’ve often lead students through the following
examples in contemporary American fiction, which I’ve found to be useful both personally as a
writer, and corporately for my students in the classroom. After exploring these examples, it should
be easier for the student writer to see the value of certain governing principles in developing
unsympathetic protagonists, which I’ve summarized into teaching points in the conclusion.
The Prejudiced Protagonist
If our fiction is to accurately reflect our culture, then we must occasionally create
protagonists with deep-rooted prejudices. There is a tightrope, though, that a writer must walk when
prejudiced thinking is central to a protagonist. No one walks this tightrope better than Raymond
Carver, especially in his best known short story, “Cathedral.” Carver would have to be atop the list of
writers who understand and truly appreciate unsympathetic protagonists. As Carver scholar Mark
Fracknitz writes, “[Carver’s characters] compose a diminished race – alcoholics, obsessives, drifters,
and other losers who are thoroughly thrashed by life in the first round” (287). To teach “Cathedral”
as a redemption of a prejudiced protagonist in the classroom, I must first ensure that students are able
to read, understand, and interpret the story.
Carver’s protagonist, the unnamed narrator of the story, learns that an old friend of his wife
– a blind man – is coming to stay the night. “His being blind bothered me” (356), admits the
narrator, who makes us, as readers, uncomfortable by continually referring to the man as “the blind
man,” rather than by his name, Robert. The narrator also demonstrates other prejudices, an example
of which comes early in the story when he, in a conversation about Robert’s recently deceased wife,
says, “Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman” (359). The protagonist seems, for the rest of the
story, to demonstrate an uneasy curiosity about “the blind man,” watching how he drinks, how he
moves. After they have several after-dinner drinks and smoke a little pot, Robert coaxes the narrator
into an uncomfortable, yet liberating situation: the narrator must touch Robert as the two draw a
picture of a cathedral together, the blind man’s hand guided by that of the narrator (374-75).
It is not uncommon for sensible students to be put off by the narrator’s prejudiced attitude
toward Robert, cringing after every shallow remark. Still, our discussion usually reveals that, not
only can students look past the flaws of the narrator and continue reading, they feel as if they have
to keep reading the story. While it seems that Carver’s ability to make this unlikable character more
tolerable is effortless, as a writer I recognize that if Carver had made a few different choices, many
students would not have been able to read “Cathedral” without their disgust for the narrator’s
prejudices preventing them from fully engaging with the story. If students hope to be successful at
developing their own unsympathetic protagonists, it is important that they can articulate how Carver
redeems his character.
The first (and arguably most important) way Carver makes the story more tolerable is he
separates himself from the prejudices of his narrator. He creates this separation by developing a
counterbalancing character: the narrator’s wife, a sensible, sensitive woman unaffected by Robert’s
handicap. For every prejudiced statement uttered by the narrator, Carver allows the narrator’s wife to
offer the voice of reason and decency, her presence a welcome reminder that Carver’s narrator is not
merely an extension of Carver’s own beliefs. A small, yet significant example of this
counterbalancing comes after the narrator’s statement that the name Beulah sounds like a “colored”
woman’s name. The narrator’s wife simply asks, “Are you crazy?” and then, “What’s wrong with
you?” (359). Students often say these questions echo what they were feeling when they read the
story. Having the narrator’s wife ask these questions directly validates the uneasiness the reader feels
for the narrator, and also foreshadows the idea that the narrator’s prejudiced thoughts will be
challenged in the story. In this way, Carver’s careful use of a secondary character creates a buffer
between the narrator’s views and the essence of the story.
This separation is extremely important because the reader, in general, can forgive such views
from a created character, but will be more reluctant to forgive a writer for forcing his or her own
shallow views on the reader through the characters. Because the narrator’s wife has such a strong
voice, the reader is able to see how Carver provides an accurate representation of a realistic character,
without condoning his protagonist’s prejudices.
Still, it is important to convey to students that creating a counterbalancing character does not
always offset the distaste the reader may feel for the prejudiced protagonist. However strong the
counterbalancing character may be, she is a secondary character. We are still guided by the voice, the
thoughts of the protagonist, especially in the case of a first-person narrative like “Cathedral,” where
all of our information is filtered through the perceptions and voice of the character we like the least.
Carver’s careful and intentional use of the first person, however, works to his advantage.
By allowing the reader inside the mind of the protagonist, Carver exposes the reader to the
narrator’s unabashed prejudices, yet also allows the reader inside the narrator’s vulnerabilities. When
the narrator tells Robert that he is happy to have the blind man’s company, the reader is rightfully
skeptical, in light of the narrator’s previously revealed prejudices, of the narrator’s sincerity.
However, Carver deepens the narrative with introspection, giving the reader a glimpse into the
loneliness of the narrator: “And I guess I was [glad to have the company]. Every night I smoked
dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at
the same time. When I did go to sleep I had these dreams. Sometimes I’d wake up from one of them,
my heart going crazy” (368). While the narrator’s loneliness is certainly not an excuse for his
prejudiced thoughts and actions, these fears and vulnerabilities complicate and partially redeem the
character. Maybe, we think to ourselves, this character’s prejudices stem from his own self-hatred. A
small dose of pity, Carver seems to remind us, can help offset a large amount of misguided thinking.
Carver’s ability to evoke pity for the narrator, however, does not lessen the severity of the
narrator’s prejudice and, therefore, is not enough in itself to neutralize the dangers of the
unsympathetic protagonist. As readers, we want to know that there is another dimension to the
prejudiced character, something that we can relate to and even like. We want to know, for instance, if
the narrator even recognizes his own faults. Once again, Carver’s effective use of the first person
comes into play: often in the story, the narrator reflects upon his own prejudices. Carver’s use of
these reflections allows the reader to see the protagonist recognizing his own bias. After the narrator
says that he was bothered by Robert’s blindness, he quickly admits, “My idea of blindness came
from the movies” (356). Later, he also reveals, “I’ve never met, or personally known, anyone who
was blind” (362). He, therefore, acknowledges that he knows very little about the blind, and so his
prejudices against them, he partially admits, derive more from ignorance than stupidity. So, I often
ask my students rhetorically if we can assume, then, that his prejudices against African-Americans are
also due to ignorance. While we, as readers, never condone his beliefs, our understanding of why the
narrator holds those beliefs is vital to our tolerance and appreciation of the story. We want to sense
that there is a difference between Carver, the artist, and the unnamed first-person voice on the page.
If we cannot make that distinction, Carver loses us.
While it is somewhat redeeming for the narrator to recognize his ignorance, we want to see
signs that he can overcome it. As the story progresses, the narrator slowly recognizes that he has been
wrong about certain things. When the narrator first encounters Robert the narrator thinks, “But he
didn’t use a cane, and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for
the blind” (362). Later in the story, the narrator states that he had always heard blind people don’t
smoke because they can’t see the smoke they exhale, only to find out that Robert “smoked his
cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one” (363). As readers, knowing that the narrator
realizes he was wrong, even in these minor details, gives us comfort. Sure, the narrator learning that
Robert smokes and doesn’t wear glasses may seem trivial, but doesn’t it give us hope for the
narrator? After all, if his prejudices do arise from his ignorance, the only way to defeat the prejudices
is to defeat his ignorance, even if that means learning one thing at a time.
In the end of the story, it is evident that the narrator has, indeed, been learning from his
observations. As mentioned in the summary, the narrator allows Robert to hold his hand, the two
drawing a picture of something Robert can never see, and the narrator cannot describe: a cathedral.
So I pose to my students: “Can we assume, then, that the narrator has completely changed, done a
180, ready to donate to charities for the blind?” Surely not, because then Carver would not have
stayed true to his character. However, because of this minute change in the narrator, slight as it might
be, Carver assures us that the narrator’s prejudices were essential in the beginning; the subtle
breakdown of these prejudices is what the story is about.
In short, Carver has created a prejudiced protagonist that we don’t really like, but we can’t
completely hate. By counterbalancing the narrator’s prejudices with the sensitivity of the narrator’s
wife, Carver has distanced himself from the views of the narrator. By allowing the narrator to
partially recognize his ignorance, Carver has given us a way by which we can feel sympathy for the
protagonist. Finally, by making the narrator experience slight change in the end, Carver assures the
reader that the narrator’s prejudices serve the deeper thematic purpose of the story.
After students are able to engage with and appreciate the story, it is important that they
attempt to develop a prejudiced protagonist themselves. Rather than have them draft a full story from
the start, I have them develop a character sketch where they have the opportunity to explore 1) what
the prejudices the character holds; 2) how the character developed those prejudices; 3) what
redeeming qualities the character has; 4) what “outside” counterbalancing techniques could be used
to help alleviate the reader’s distaste for the character. It may sound like a simple exercise, but I’m
often told it is one of the more difficult assignments of the semester.
The Passive Protagonist
“Protagonist” is not synonymous with “hero.” If the protagonist of any given short story
came to life, he would undoubtedly be flawed, and in some cases (like the narrator in Carver’s
“Cathedral”) he would be someone we would like to avoid altogether. While much of the literature
of our past, beginning with the works of Homer, displays a yearning for heroic protagonists – bold,
unapologetic, nonconforming go-getters who make the wheels of the story turn – contemporary
fiction tends to focus on the average Joe, even the losers. In her craft book The Writing of Fiction,
Edith Wharton discusses the gradual shift of the identity of the protagonist, beginning in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: “The next advance was made when the protagonists of this new
inner drama were transformed from conventionalized puppets – the hero, the heroine . . . – into
breathing and recognizable human beings” (6-7).
Heroic characters, taken to the extreme, could have become problematic in themselves for
the writer concerned with the likeability of his or her protagonist. After all, there is a fine line
between individualist and selfish, self-assured and cocky. But the far greater challenge is to create and
develop a protagonist who has none of these qualities, who is a wait-and-see kind of person, who is,
in fact, passive.
An example I use in the classroom for illustration is Daniel Quinn, Paul Auster’s protagonist
in his novella City of Glass. From the very onset, the third person narrator of the story makes
perfectly clear that Quinn will be a different type of protagonist when he explains, “As for Quinn,
there is little that need detain us. Who he was, where he came from, and what he did are of no great
importance” (3). This gives us an immediate pause: what do you mean those things are of no great
importance? The irony, of course, is that these are the very things that make a protagonist worth
writing about. Still, Auster manages to write a story with an apparently unimportant protagonist. We
will find, as we progress through the story, that Quinn is much more important than the narrator
would have us believe.
In the guise of a detective story, Auster explores the inner struggle of his protagonist as
Quinn tries to discover why he has been mistaken for someone else, all the while learning about who
he really is. To understand Quinn’s plight, one must first understand some basic information about
the story: Quinn, a fiction writer who writes detective stories under the pseudonym William Wilson,
receives a phone call one night by an unidentified speaker asking for Paul Auster (yes, the author’s
name). Auster (the character, not the author) is a real-life detective, and Quinn decides to play along
and pretend he is, in fact, Paul Auster. Quinn, under the name Auster, is hired by Peter Stillman, who
consistently reminds Quinn, “that is not my real name,” (18), to follow Peter’s father, also named
Peter Stillman. Throughout the course of the story, Quinn, under the guise of Paul Auster, claims to
be Peter Stillman and Henry Dark (a fictional character that the elder Peter Stillman created).
Confused? Then we have a starting point.
The first thing Auster does to offset the dilemma of a passive protagonist is create deep levels
of mystery (mass confusion!) that dictate the story. If the writer’s primary goal is to actively engage
the reader in the action of the story, yet the protagonist’s characteristics make him difficult to care
about, how does the writer avoid reader boredom? While several solutions to this problem may be
great fodder for classroom discussion, I always come back to Auster’s remedy: creating continuous
diversions, predicaments that the protagonist does not create, but cannot ignore. By using the genre
conventions of a mystery, Auster ensures active reader participation by making every detail so
important to the plot of the story that the reader cannot afford to blink. After all, the reader must be
actively engaged in the story merely to sift through the complexity of the protagonist’s identity: Paul
Auster (the author) is writing about Daniel Quinn (a writer), who writes detective stories under the
name William Wilson, who is currently assuming the name Paul Auster (a real detective). Auster has
made the philosophical “who am I?” into a tangible problem that the reader cannot ignore. In this
way, Auster has followed Flannery O’Connor’s advice when she wrote, “Detail has to be controlled
by some overall purpose, and every detail has to be put to work for you. Art is selective. What is
there is essential and creates movement” (93). Auster, through his details, works extraordinarily hard
to maintain movement in the story, and these details engage our intelligence, allowing us to piece
together part of the mystery. In this way, Auster’s use of the mystery genre and his attention to detail
makes City of Glass a page turner, not so that we may find out what Quinn does, but so we may
discover what happens to Quinn.
Quinn becomes a sort of improviser in the story, accepting his circumstances as absolute, and
playing the best card he has available. As I suggested before, the whole story revolves around
Quinn’s identity being mistaken for someone else. After denying that he is, in fact, Paul Auster
several times, Quinn decides that it would be easier for him to merely accept the role of Auster (the
detective) than to convince the caller of his true identity. As the story deepens, so does Quinn’s
passivity. As Quinn reflects on the case of Peter Stillman (who he has been following for weeks at
this point), we learn:
It was fate, then. Whatever he thought of it, however much he might want it to be
different, there was nothing he could do about it. He had said yes to a proposition,
and now he was powerless to undo that yes. That meant only one thing: he had to go
through with it. There could not be two answers. It was either this or that. And so it
was, whether he liked it or not. (133)
Even though Auster has provided plenty of interesting diversions, students often still find it difficult
to ignore Quinn’s fundamental passivity. And perhaps they shouldn’t; because after all, Quinn often
revels in the fact that, by assuming another person’s identity, he has even forgone the responsibility
to think for himself: “The effect of being Paul Auster, [Quinn] had begun to learn, was not
altogether unpleasant. Although he still had the same body, the same mind, the same thoughts, he felt
as though he had somehow been taken out of himself, as if he no longer had to walk around with the
burden of his own consciousness” (61). How, then, does Auster pacify his reader’s desire for an
active protagonist, while remaining true to Quinn’s undeniably passive nature?
The answer lies in Quinn’s consciousness, the constant struggle in his mind. Quinn’s passivity
is real, but it is by no means absolute. Passive in action, yes; passive in thought, no. Because he has
taken on the role of Paul Auster, Quinn is burdened now with the consciousness of the detective, as
well as his own consciousness. An excellent example of his ongoing internal struggle comes when,
after Quinn has lost track of the elder Peter Stillman (who Quinn was supposed to be following to
ensure the elder Peter Stillman planned to do no harm to the younger Peter Stillman), Quinn decides
that the best solution is to live, indefinitely, in an alley adjacent to the younger Stillman’s apartment.
Quinn reasons that his job is not ultimately about tracking the elder Stillman, but “to protect Peter, to
make sure no harm came to him” (133). As Quinn waits outside of the building, he literally does
nothing but think for a long time, “exactly how long it is impossible to say. Weeks certainly, but
perhaps even months” (135). As time passes, Quinn’s thoughts begin to overtake the novella, his
obsession with continually watching the apartment the only movement in the story. While one may
think this type of setup would undoubtedly lead to reader boredom, Auster has already convinced
the reader that Quinn’s thoughts are, indeed, very interesting. Here is Quinn’s thought process on
how to maintain a sufficient level of sleep to remain healthy while minimizing his risk of missing an
intrusion by the elder Peter Stillman:
Clearly, [Quinn] could not sleep for three or four hours in a row. The risks were
simply too great. Theoretically, the most efficient use of the time would be to sleep
for thirty seconds every five or six minutes. That would reduce his chances of
missing something almost to nil. But he realized that this was physically impossible.
On the other hand, using this impossibility as a kind of model, he tried to train
himself into taking a series of short naps, alternating between sleeping and waking as
often as he could. . . . Towards the end, he had begun to manage the fifteen-minute
nap with a fair amount of success. (137)
Quinn, maniacally committed to the case, spends his time obsessing over other routine processes and
necessities: eating, finding shelter, cleaning-up after himself. But one cannot mistake these thoughts
as arbitrary additions to a detective story. Quinn’s task of finding and tracking Peter Stillman is
merely Auster’s method – what Hitchcock called “The MacGuffin” – for unearthing the true purpose
of the story: Quinn’s self discovery. In this way, Quinn’s increasingly complex thought processes,
and the time allotted to explaining those thought processes, is central to our understanding that
Quinn has begun to go mad. If we, as readers, have missed the clues, the narrator fills us in by
saying, “We cannot know for certain what happened to Quinn during this period, for it is at this
point in the story that he began to lose his grip” (135). Quinn’s passivity is actually necessary to
produce movement in the story, at least the type of psychological movement that Auster is
attempting to achieve.
Auster is only able to stay true to his passive protagonist through clever manipulation of the
reader’s focus. From the beginning, he convinces the reader that this story about self-discovery is
worthwhile by making the reader uncertain about everything and everybody. We want to find out
who Quinn really is even more than Quinn himself. Quinn’s thoughts become interesting and
necessary to the action of the story, even when Quinn seems to have no control over his own
circumstances. In short, Auster’s goal seems to be to heighten the level of reader involvement, so that
Quinn’s passivity never becomes an issue – or rather it is the issue around which all other issues of
plot, character, and theme revolve.
City of Glass is undoubtedly a labyrinth of names and identities, plots and subplots,
outrageous actions and philosophical inquiry, all of which point to the larger question: who is Daniel
Quinn? But the element that makes Auster’s novella stand out among other self-discovery narratives
is that he goes beyond the simple “who am I?” and explores the philosophical essence of the question
in a way that most of us cannot put into words. The novella not only asks “who is Daniel Quinn?”
but also “who is Paul Auster?” and “who are you?” and “who am I?” and “who are we?” With all of
that packed into one novella, how can the reader possibly find the time to be bored?
For practical application in the classroom, I’ve often had students think about the most
passive person they know, and employ that person as a character (or composite character) in a very
short story (usually limited a brief 1,000 words). The exercise gives the student freedom to take the
story in any direction he or she chooses with one limitation: the conflict must begin externally (that
is, as an outside force that happens to the protagonist), and must end internally. Sometimes the
students’ work falls flat, but more often than not, they produce short pageturners.
The Cruel Protagonist
In fiction, cruelty abounds; it is an excellent, organic source of conflict, which is at the heart
of every good story. As Carver says, “I like it when there is some feeling of threat or sense of
menace in short stories. . . . For one thing, it’s good for the circulation. There has to be tension, a
sense that something is imminent, that certain things are in relentless motion, or else, most often,
there simply won’t be a story” (“A Storyteller’s Shoptalk”).
The question is how do you write about cruel people? As secondary characters they are
manageable; as antagonists they are perfect; after all, who doesn’t like to read about the downfall of
a cruel person? When creating a cruel protagonist, however, students must be certain they can
redeem the character (or at least the story) from the inevitable scorn the protagonist’s actions will
provoke. I make certain to convey in class that this type of unsympathetic protagonist may be the
most difficult to write because the cruel protagonist is, in most cases, the easiest protagonist for the
reader to hate. While a writer of a prejudiced protagonist can expose the character’s ignorance for
partial character redemption, and a writer of a passive protagonist may reveal that inaction is not
always a flaw, a writer of a cruel protagonist must face the fact that there is always an alternative to
cruel behavior; he or she must convince the reader that the protagonist’s continual choice of cruel
over selfless (or simply decent) action serves the story. In his celebrated short story “Where Will You
Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?” William Gay does just that.
The protagonist of Gay’s story – who the third-person narrator coldly calls The Jeepster – is
a dark, nasty, vengeful character by any standards:
In these latter days The Jeepster had discovered an affinity for the night side of
human nature. Places where horrific events had happened drew him with a gently
perverse gravity. These desecrated places of murder and suicide had the almostnostalgic tug of his childhood home. . . . These were places where the things that
happened were so terrible that they had imprinted themselves onto an atmosphere
that still trembled faintly with the unspeakable. (120)
The Jeepster is an intimidator and a murderer. He is also clearly insane, demonstrated in his final act
of rebellion: barging into a funeral home and stealing the mangled corpse of the woman he loves.
Gay’s task is daunting: to convince the reader that The Jeepster is worth reading about, despite his
unrelenting, even depraved cruelty.
Gay’s first step, like Carver’s in “Cathedral,” is to distance himself from the protagonist.
Rather than create a counterbalancing character to create this distance, Gay chooses to seemingly
dehumanize the protagonist, The Jeepster’s actions driven almost exclusively by animal-like
impulses: “He was armed and dangerous and running on adrenaline and fury and grief and honed to
such a fine edge that alcohol and drugs no longer affected him. . . . He had his ticket punched for the
graveyard or the penitentiary and one foot on the platform and the other foot on the train. He had
everything he needed to get himself killed” (113). Gay frames the story as a kind of gothically
lyrical case-study of a psychopath. From the beginning of the story we see that The Jeepster’s
reckless lifestyle is full of emotion but void of reason. With no regard for his own well-being, The
Jeepster is his own antagonist. Oddly enough, The Jeepster’s self-destructive behavior actually makes
him more tolerable; The Jeepster’s dual-role as protagonist/antagonist allows us to care less about
whether The Jeepster is sympathetic, and more about his ongoing internal struggle. Gay emphasizes
this internal struggle by the Jeepster’s symbolic tattoos: “A letter to each finger, LOVE and HATE
inscribed there by some drunk or stoned tattooist in blurred jailhouse blue. The fingers were
interlocked illegibly and so spelled nothing” (115). In this way, Gay redirects our expectations,
allowing the tension in the story to hold our interest where our sympathy for the protagonist will
inevitably fail.
In classroom discussion, students often pick up on the potential problem with Gay’s use of
the good-versus-evil internal struggle: the “good” in the protagonist can only be found in miniscule
traces, while “evil” seems to saturate the story. The scales are grossly off-balance – a potential
problem for a writer relying on the validity of a genuine internal struggle. But before we lose
interest, Gay reminds us that The Jeepster does indeed have a human side: “The Jeepster and Aimee
shared a joint history, tangled and inseparable, like two trees that have grown together, a single trunk
faulted at the heart” (123). Aimee, who we know little about, but understand to be a sympathetic
character, sees the good in The Jeepster, symbolically evidenced by the fact that she is the only
character to refer to the protagonist by his real name, Leonard (118). Aimee knows a different side
of the Jeepster – his elusive “good” side that we are never exposed to in the course of the story, but
we know exists nonetheless. Gay’s choice to never overtly reveal the good side of The Jeepster’s
nature is not surprising considering his belief that “good writing . . . needs to give the illusion at least
that it is more than it seems to be about. There needs to be some depth to it” (“William Gay Offers”).
Gay, like Auster in City of Glass, empowers the reader’s intelligence; the subtleties of The Jeepster’s
sympathetic side are never reinforced, but are left to our imagination.
Still, it is difficult to accept the disturbing behavior of The Jeepster with only an implied,
marginally-good “other side” of his character. What would cause a person – good, evil, or otherwise
– to commit murder, or to steal a corpse from a funeral home? For us to accept The Jeepster, those
questions must be at least implicitly answered by the writer. Gay accomplishes this through carefully
planned back story.
Since Gay begins the story (as do most modern short story writers) in the middle of the
action, in medias res, certain questions immediately arise. Why is it, we want to know, that “The
Jeepster couldn’t keep still. For forty-eight hours he’d been steady on the move and no place worked
for long” (113)? Why is it that “he felt he was on fire and running with upraised arms into a stiff
cold wind, but instead of cooling him the wind just fanned the flames” (113)? These questions are
not answered immediately, but Gay gives us clues; we learn that Aimee, who we assume The Jeepster
loved, has been murdered by Escue, a man The Jeepster knows well. The Jeepster’s cruel behavior to
follow, then, is fueled by his own pain and grief. Even as Gay reveals The Jeepster as a selfish
misanthrope, we cannot ignore the pain that the protagonist must feel; he has lost the only person he
cares about, or more importantly, the only person who appears to care about him. Gay never asks us
to condone The Jeepster’s cruelty, but merely to attempt to understand it.
As the story progresses, Gay gives us even more reason to understand the Jeepster’s
behavior. In more back story, we learn that Aimee had come to The Jeepster with a request the
morning she was murdered: “I want to borrow a gun. . . . I’m afraid [Escue] will be there tonight
when I get off work. He said he was going to kill me and he will. He slapped me around some this
morning. I just want him to see it. If he knows I’ve got it there in my purse he’ll leave me
alone” (118). In retrospect, The Jeepster would have undoubtedly loaned Aimee a gun. At the time,
however, he responded with “I’m not loaning you a gun. . . . You’d shoot yourself. Or some old
lady crossing the street” (118). Not only has The Jeepster lost the only important person in his life,
he is (at least in his mind) partially to blame for her murder. Never does Gay directly tell us that The
Jeepster’s guilt is what drives much of his cruel behavior, but a careful interpretation of The
Jeepster’s circumstances point us in that direction. Because Escue kills himself after murdering
Aimee, The Jeepster cannot ease his guilt the way someone with his sensibilities normally might:
revenge. The only consolation for the protagonist, then, is to formally say his goodbyes to Aimee,
which he is not allowed to do; Aimee’s relatives legally restrain him from visiting the funeral home.
In The Jeepster’s psychotic state of mind, the only way to ease his guilt is to get to the body of
Aimee, even if it means murdering the undertaker guarding Aimee’s casket:
It’s a closed-casket service [said the undertaker]. The Jeepster realized he was on the
tilted edge of things, where the footing was bad and his grip tenuous at best. He felt
the frayed mooring lines that held him silently tail away into the dark and he felt a
sickening lurch in his very being. There are some places you can’t come back from.
He took the pistol out of his waistband. No it’s not, he said. (125)
While most of us (hopefully) would not commit murder, we can easily sympathize with The
Jeepster’s need to mourn over the body of a deceased loved one.
In fact, despite his cruelty, we can relate to many of the things The Jeepster feels, which
engenders our ability to reject his actions, but still accept and feel deep sympathy for his character.
Even Gay’s use of the second person in the story’s title aides our understanding of the protagonist.
Gay seems to ask us directly, “Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?” With a
resounding echo of “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” Gay seems to dare us to read the
story withholding judgment: a rewarding experience for those who are able to do so.
After a careful reading and discussion, most of my students have a similar reaction: they still
do not like The Jeepster; but their dislike of the protagonist does not hinder their appreciation of the
story. This is a reasonable reaction; after all, had The Jeepster been more sympathetic, Gay’s purpose
– to show the extreme results of unassuaged grief - would have been diminished. This story is a
paragon for Gay’s belief that fiction “ought to be about things that really matter” (“William Gay
Offers”). Without the cruelty of The Jeepster, this particular story would have not realized its
potential. Like the prejudices of Carver’s protagonist, and the fundamental passivity of Auster’s, the
cruelty of Gay’s character serves to move the story to its desired end, and to reinforce its deepest
meaning.
Practicing the development of a cruel protagonist is often difficult for students, but can be
one of the more rewarding exercises of the semester. I often have them choose a story that they love
with a clear antagonistic character, and write a short spin-off of the story where the antagonist
becomes protagonist. If nothing else, the exercise is challenging, the results are fun, and the student
is forced to understand the story in a whole new way.
Strategies for Creating and Developing Unsympathetic Protagonists
Again, in the words of Gardner, there are no rules. Any attempt, then, to chronicle the
“rights” and “wrongs” of writing unsympathetic protagonists would be inherently flawed. Still,
coinciding with the three previous examples, the following principles often help students better
understand the techniques a writer employs when creating a story with an unsympathetic protagonist:
•
The writer must separate himself or herself from the flaws of the protagonist. A writer
can create this distance in numerous ways (as exemplified in the different approaches used by
Carver and Gay), but the task must be accomplished early in the story. If a writer fails to
make this separation clear, he or she runs the risk of directing the reader’s lack of sympathy
towards the writer, rather than the character.
•
Protagonist’s flaws cannot be arbitrary. As O’Connor relates, every detail of the story has
to work together for the unified whole. If the character’s flaw does not serve a specific and
necessary purpose, a writer is unlikely to benefit from its inclusion.
•
Point-of-view is a paramount decision. While choosing the best point-of-view is crucial to
every story, the inclusion of an unsympathetic narrator magnifies its importance. Will the
heightened intimacy stemming from a first-person point-of-view allow the reader to better
understand and sympathize with the narrator, as in “Cathedral?” Will an omniscient thirdperson point-of-view be able to assuage the passivity of a protagonist, as in City of Glass?
Will the close, limited-omniscience exemplified in Gay’s story strike a middle ground of
subjectivity and objectivity? There is no one answer, but a writer will be wise to consider the
governing ideas of the story and adjust the point-of-view accordingly.
•
Protagonist should at least have traces of a “good” side. This has to do with character
believability; just as nobody in real life is flawlessly good, even the worst of the worst have
some redeeming qualities.
•
Evoking empathy for the protagonist often helps. When a writer allows bad things to
happen to unsympathetic protagonists (or in the case of Gay’s story, when a writer relates
bad things that have happened to the protagonist in the past), two benefits are likely: a
heightened level of conflict and reader empathy.
•
The protagonist should always be given the opportunity to change. Whether an
unsympathetic protagonist makes any change is not as important as the writer providing the
circumstances in which the character must make the decision to be dynamic or static.
•
A writer must understand his unsympathetic protagonist’s flaws. If a writer fails to know
his or her characters on an intimate level (their fears, their insecurities, their hopes, their
sensibilities), the writer fails to represent those characters for who they truly are, likeable or
otherwise. If the writer does not fully understand why a protagonist has a particular flaw, he
or she cannot possibly make the details of that flaw work to fulfill the governing purpose of
the story.
•
Examination of character should lead to the deepest meaning of the story. Just as Carver’s
depiction of a prejudiced protagonist makes “Cathedral” a study of prejudice, and Auster’s
development of a passive protagonist makes his novella an exploration of inner vs. outer
passivity and ultimately a study of identity, a writer’s decision to develop an unsympathetic
protagonist should serve to unearth the story’s deepest purpose.
Unsympathetic protagonists are an essential part of our literature, especially literature from
writers concerned with producing an accurate reflection of our society. As Gardner eloquently
writes:
Fiction seeks out truth. Granted, it seeks a poetic kind of truth, universals not easily
translatable into moral codes. But part of our interest as we read is in learning how
the world works; how the conflicts we share with the writer and all other human
beings can be resolved, if at all; what values we can affirm and, in general, what the
moral risks are. The writer who can’t distinguish truth . . . can never write good
fiction. (79)
By examining unsympathetic protagonists – their flaws, their shortcomings, their bitterness, and their
redeeming qualities – we give ourselves a better chance at unearthing some of the deepest truths
about the real people we encounter every day. While writing such characters may not be the safest
route for a fiction writer, it may often be the most rewarding. If a writer understands the potential
pitfalls of creating a story with an unsympathetic protagonist, and if he or she carefully considers the
strategies for avoiding such problems, the result can be astonishing.
Works Cited
Auster, Paul. "City of Glass." The New York Trilogy. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. 2-158.
Print.
Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral." Where I'm Calling From. New York: Vintage Contemporaries,
1989. 356-75. Print.
- - -. "A Storyteller's Shoptalk." Editorial. New York Times 15 Feb. 1981: n. pag. Web. 4 May
2010. http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/01/21/specials/carver
shoptalk.html?_r=2&oref=slogin
Facknitz, Mark A.R. "'The Calm,' 'A Small, Good Think,' and 'Cathedral': Raymond Carver and
the Rediscovery of Human Worth." Studies in Short Fiction 22.3 (1986): 287-96. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 4 May 2010.
Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Print.
Gay, William. "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?" The Best American
Short Stories: 2007. Ed. Stephen King and Heidi Pitlor. New York: Houghton Mifflin,
2007.
113-26. Print.
- - -. "William Gay Offers a Piercing Portrait of a Vanishing Rural Culture." Interview by Alden
Mudge. BookPage. ProMotion, inc, Jan. 2001. Web. 4 May 2010. <http://www.bookpage.com/
0101bp/william_gay.html>.
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft. New York: Pocket Books, 2001. Print.
O'Connor, Flannery. "Writing Short Stories." Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. New
York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1970. 87-106. Print.
Wharton, Edith. The Writing of Fiction. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Print.