A Character Analysis
John Simpson, the main character of The Hero, was borne of a basic writing strategy that: (a) readers are fascinated and threatened by change in their real lives. (b) Change threatens one’s self-concept, and (c) one’s self-concept is so thoroughly engrained that humans will go to any length to keep things as they are.
The first sentence of the story was used to establish this strategy for the reader. The story begins: “There was only one truth in life that John Simpson embraced completely and faithfully. It was an absolute that his thirty-one years on the planet had verified repeatedly without condition or limitation: Change is never good.”
With the first sentence set-up of John’s character established, I incorporated cause and effect from the following Bertolt Brecht ideas to mold John into the neurotic he needed to be: (a) “Unhappy the land that is need of heroes.” (b) “Because things are the way they are, things will stay the way they are.” (c) “Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.”
Once the reader identifies John as a man driven by the most basic human fear: change, two more elements are added which brings us to the John’s story conclusion: (1) the double-meaning of the word Hero in the story, and (2) the blaming of one’s failures on others.
And what is John’s conclusion? Simply put, he like most humans can never truly change.
For more information on Mike Kearby and her stories check out the links below.
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Mike Kearby (born 1952) is an award-winning American novelist and inventor. Since 2005, Kearby has published ten novels, one graphic novel, and written two screenplays: (2011) Boston Nightly, with fellow writer Paul Bright and (2012) The Devouring. Boston Nightly is scheduled for filming in Dallas in the spring of 2013.
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