Despair and Hope: A Character Analysis in 'The Laughing Man'

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On the other hand, the Chief, in “The Laughing Man”, experiences a situation in which his hopes slowly died and, in turn, changed into a never-ending path of despair, much like Seymour and Sergeant X. His hopes, in this case, are set within his girlfriend, Mary Hudson (95). Despite having a god-like effect on the children, the Chief is nothing more than a skinny law-student, and must create a fictional in order to compensate for his love-less life. This is exemplified when the narrator states, “his hair-line extremely low, his nose was large and fleshy, and his torso was just about as long as his legs were”, implying that he was less than fortunate when it came to girls (85). However, once Mary Hudson is introduced, she changes the Chief by …show more content…

After sending a false resume to Les Amis des Vieux Maîtres, a Canadian art institute, to apply as a teacher, de Daumier-Smith realizes that the art institute that he had hoped for was in fact an institute run out of the headmaster’s apartment in the rundown section of Montreal (213). This revelation signals the first of many hopes that will soon be destroyed throughout the story. Along with staying in the Verdun section of Montreal, and enduring two loathsome hosts, de Daumier-Smith must also teach two students who he considers are artistically incompetent (225). Initially, de Daumier-Smith considered the art institute to be of prestige and highly selective, since the ad stated it was, “the newest, most progressive, correspondence art school in Canada” and the directeur formally attended “the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, Tokyo” (203,204). His hopes of instructing highly skilled artists blinded de Daumier-Smith to see beyond the attractive title of the advertisement. Once he realized that his students are novices to the subject, his hopes of instructing future prodigies and geniuses disappears. Nevertheless, the biggest loss of hope is not being able to speak with Sister Irma, indefinitely, and seeing true potential going to waste. After reading Sister Irma’s questionnaire and examining her works, de Daumier-Smith recognizes her true potential as an artist mentioning, “After thirteen years, I not only distinctly remember all six of Sister Irma’s samples, but four of them I sometimes think I remember a trifle too distinctly…” (227). However, regardless of how much de Daumier-Smith wanted to visit Sister Irma as well as perfect her talent, he is dumbstruck and driven with grief when he is notified that Sister Irma will not be studying at Les Amis Des Vieux Maîtres (242). This shown in

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