The Character Quoyle in Annie Proulx's The Shipping News

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Recommended: Essay about the challenges of adulthood

"The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure" - Sven Goran Eriksson. Success is an achievement in life which most people would be appreciative towards, but failure is looked upon in a disgraceful manner. People in society tend to face many challenges that occur in their daily lives. Some of these challenges can affect their lives dramatically in a positive or negative way. If one decides not to surmount their challenges they will suffer within themselves for a long period of time. Having confidence within is considered the greatest way to overcome suffering in life. In the novel, The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx, Quoyle deals with many difficult challenges along his life journey by suffering from bad childhood experiences which led him to have a low self confidence, which later on affected him in adulthood as well. All of Quoyle?s life decisions at first were base on him listening to others and continuing life suffering through it day by day but afterwards in the novel near the end, he experiences happiness for the first time. If someone is unable to overcome their bad experiences and fears in the past then they cannot be successful in the future. Also, a person should be strong and have faith in themselves to overcome their fears to fain the joy and happiness in their life. The modern day hero is distinguished as a hero with both successes and failures. A hero?s successes are determined by the hero?s power within themselves to overcome fears and obstacles and failures are determined by the hero?s weak point or flaw which leads to their predicted downfall and portrays them as an atypical hero. A hero can be depicted as an atypical hero at first but can still gain the success and happiness they longed for in the end.
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...ek we had the sawmill story, story on the new National Historic Park in Misky Bay, demonstration over foreign high electric rates, the shrimp processor?s strike ? good, solid local stories ? and we had to camp ?em in very hard. No pix. I mean, it would be different if it was real ads.? (Proulx, 292) This confirms Quoyle is beginning to get stronger within as an adult. The Gammy Bird newspaper always had violence in it such as the car wrecks, sexual assaults, thefts etc. There would never be any good news in their newspaper and that is what Quoyle wanted and he said how he felt towards the situation and that was a big step for him because he usually lets others make their guidelines for him. Now the newspaper can have good news in it such as a Lifestyle section for people to enjoy reading and it was all because of Quoyle putting his mind, effort and courage into it.

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