In the film Double Indemnity, I see Barton Keyes as the protagonist while Walter Neff is the antagonist. Keyes is seen as the protagonist as he seeks to uncover the truth behind the death of Phyllis Dietrichson's husband as he believe the death wasn't due to his suicide. The purpose and drive Keyes has would also push the plot forward and is the reason why he is the protagonist. While Neff is trying to cover his tracks and hide the truth from Keyes makes him the antagonist. I also think Phyllis can be seen as antagonist too as she worked together with Neff to kill her husband.
Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell is another example of a character foil in the book
In two short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People written by Flannery O’Connor, we are introduced to two antagonists, the Misfit and Manley Pointer. The Misfit, in A Good Man is Hard to Find, is a criminal on the run who comes across a family who has gotten in a car crash on their road trip. In Good Country People, Manly Pointer is a well to-do christian who travels across the south and tricks people into trusting him and then steals from them. These two villains in these stories share similar traits such as their dislike for religion and forcing the antagonist of the two stories to see who they really are. However, they also differ greatly from their approach to others and how they deal with their own cruel actions.
The story illustrates this in the two characters of Dr Jekyll. and Mr. Hyde. Mr Hyde is on the evil side of Dr Jekyll, but he is restrained from being. wholly evil by Victorian society. Looking closely at Dr Jekyll.
...iminals who do what they are told, they have quick tempers and have no difficulty drawing their guns in order to kill someone. They are antagonists because they will do anything in order to get the Maltese Falcon for Spade and O’Shaughnessy.
Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder 1944) is a film about an insurance sales man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) that falls for a highly sexual, scandalous woman, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) who attempts to kill her husband. Even though Walter dismisses Phyllis attempt to purchase life insurance policy for her husband; he is unable to stay away from Phyllis for long. In the time they spend together, Walter and Phyllis try to hatch a fool-proof plan to get rid of her husband and get a double indemnity from the insurance company. Walter Neff boss Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is a man of skill and knowledge, and has been working in the same job for twenty-six years, and has always been able to tell who is a cheater and who is an honest man. Barton ability to tell who is being honest by consulted the ‘little man’, and does so throughout the film. Walter later finds out that Phyllis has been involved in another ‘accident’ prior to her involvement with her husband Mr. Dietrichson (Tom Powers).When both Walter and Phyllis are about to be found out by Barton, Phyllis attempts to kill Walter and escape with the cash. The scene in which both Barton and Walter are together in the office and are later in the hallway in which the male characters Walter and Barton both find themselves together on the ground highlights and suggest gender noir in the film. The film Double Indemnity uses the stylistic qualities of film noir to illustrate the homo-erotic relationship between Barton and Walter with the use of lights, shadows, and oneiric qualities which also suggest and emphasize the importance power of gender in noir.
The antagonist of the story is the atomic bomb. The bomb caused damages that affect the lives of the protagonists for decades until their death. It also affected the community of Hiroshima. Americans are not considered Antagonist of the story due to the Japanese community of Hiroshima thinking that their demise was caused by the result of the war.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, the dual nature of man is a main theme. Jekyll says: "Man is not /truly one, but truly two"(125), meaning all people have both a good and a bad side. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion to fully separate good and evil, but instead it awakens a dormant character, Mr. Hyde. Throughout the novel, Stevenson uses society, control, and symbolism to tell the reader about human nature.
Chris Colfer says “ a villain is a victim whose story hasn't been told yet.” When the word villain comes to mind people always assume the worst, that the character is cold, evil, and manipulative. An audience will not except that villains were not always evil, something or someone made them that way. Abigail Williams the antagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Shylock the antagonist of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice both fall prey to this accusation. Abigail and Shylock are both debatable villains because they both suffered violent pasts and were victims of their societies.
In many cases, the villain of a story is the malevolent character that actively complicates the life of the protagonist. But in some cases, the villain ruins the life of the protagonist in the background by sucking the protagonist dry of hope. Zenobia Pierce Frome from Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, is the passive villain. She ruins Ethan's life and shows her evil side by neglecting Ethan, complicating his life, and taking away everything Ethan holds dear.
In both Ann Petry’s “Like a Winding Sheet” and Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby” the protagonist is also the antagonist. In the story, Like a Winding Sheet its Mae’s husband, Johnson, and in the story Desiree’s Baby it’s Desiree’s husband, Armand. In the beginning of both stories their husband seem to be loving, caring husbands who would never hurt their family. Then, the stories turn in a twist when the husband became insolent and angry toward their wives, but they were feeling furious towards themselves. Johnson was repeatedly getting abused from the outside world and in his mind and he starts to espouse a dismissive image that turned to anger against his wife and eventually he kills her. Armand was angry at his wife because his son turned out
“Romeo and Juliet” is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. The antagonists in Shakespeare’s plays are usually easy to pick out, however in “Romeo and Juliet” it is not quite as clear because there are so many. An antagonist can be referred to as the villain in a story or play, or an opponent going against the protagonists. In other words, the antagonist is known as the “bad guy”. Since “Romeo and Juliet” doesn’t have one dominant villain, many different characters play the role as the villains in many different ways.
In our society, individuals might insist their own point of view and refuse to consider others’ opposite ideas, however, in an existing film, revolutionary and conservative standpoints can be accepted at the same time to make the film “neutral”. Through considering the collisions of opposite standpoints which occur in the noir movie named “Double Indemnity” which directed by Billy Wilder and had earned the label of “unfilmmable” in Hollywood because of the story between Walter Neff played by Fred MacMurray and Phyllis Dietrichson played by Barbara Stanwyck in 1943(Biltereyst 148) , this essay will illuminate the characteristics of traditional female image and another kind of female role named “femme fatales” which is opposite to the traditional
Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon is main antagonist in The House of Seven Gables. An antagonist is character or characters that oppose protagonist who usually creates the problem. He was known by the major population as a man of noble character. However his relatives, Clifford, Hepizbah, and Phoebe Pncheon know him as a brutal, selfish, and greedy man. His “exceedingly pleasant countenance” (pg.86, Hawthorne) does not fool them instead they were filled with fear. They knew that their Uncle Judge...
Determine all of the story's conflicts. Determine the major conflict and state this in terms of protagonist versus antagonist.
William Dane and Dunstan Cass are the two antagonists in the novel. In chapter 1, as mentioned before, William sets Silas up and betrays him...