Analysis Of Leiningen Versus The Ants

Character Analysis: Leiningen

In "Leiningen Versus the Ants," Carl Stephenson uses detail to reveal the character or, "attitude" to describe the main character Leiningen in the story. I put Leiningen's attributes in three words: intelligent, courageous, and overconfident. The protagonist of the story, Leiningen is proven to be a developed character who possesses good and bad attributes, but finds himself in a horrendous situation that requires him to act boldly in order to save himself, and his 400 workers from the ant brigade.

Leiningen is considered intelligent, because he considers the strongest weapon against the ants is his brain or the knowledge he has gained throughout the years. During the conversation with the District Commissioner in the beginning of the story, he told him, "I'rn not going to run for it just because an elemental's on the way. ....... I use my intelligence, old man." In this statement, he told the District Commissioner that the ants aren't that much of a problem to him or his plantation. Second of all,

another reason why Leiningen is considered intelligent is that he knows how to deal with the ants. After the stampede of wild animals running from the ants, this is told in the story," This water-filled ditch was one of the defense measures which Leiningen had long since prepared against the advent of the ants. It encompassed three sides of the plantation like a huge horseshoe." This is telling how Leiningen has prepared to fight the ants.

Leiningen is courageous, because he knows that his 400 workers will stand by him through the event.

Moments after he had the conversation with the District Commissioner about the ant problem, it's stated in the story, "That same evening, however, Leiningen assembled his workers. He had no intention of waiting till the news reached their ears from other sources." This shows an example of how Leiningen is courageous. Second of all, another reason why Leiningen is considered courageous is because he never gives up. In the story it states, "Then all at once he saw, starkly clear and huge, and, right before his eyes, furred with ants, towering and swaying in its death agony, the pampas stag. ...... And something outside him seemed to drag him to his feet. He tottered. He began to stagger forward again." Even when a few hundreds of ants are crawling over his body, biting him and through his flesh to the bone, he still wouldn't give

up.

Leiningen is considered overconfident or, "Presuming," because he had underestimated the ants. In the story, one of the locals has told him, "I've done my best," he gasped. "Your obstinacy endangers not only yourself, but the lives of your four hundred workers. You don't know these ants!" After one of his workers told him that he ignored him, because nothing was going to stand in his way to protect his plantation. Second of all, another reason why Leiningen is considered overconfident is that he thought he had them when they got the inner ditch filled with petrol. When the ants got to the petrol-filled ditch and lit them on fire, but the ants kept coming and he had noticed that there wasn't enough petrol to kill them all.

Leiningen is considered intelligent, courageous, and overconfident. In the entire story, he was too overconfident when fighting 68 billion ants.