Villain

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A Villain Nonetheless
A great hero is often classified as such due to their outstanding ability to defeat opposition against all odds. The opposition may be a physical barrier, such as a barren desert they must cross; an emotional struggle, such as a mental illness or suffocating grief; or an antagonist who seeks to foil the hero’s plans at every stage. An antagonist, or villain, can add much depth and intrigue to a story, particularly through the reasoning behind their actions. Many villains are full of dark secrets and ulterior motives. The more formidable the enemy that a writer creates, the more heroic the protagonist becomes. The concept of heroes and villains is not always so clear cut, though. Sometimes a hero must use unjust means to accomplish their goals, or the villain may just be a misguided, tortured soul who deserves pity. In the case of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat, the protagonist, the story’s narrator, slowly forms into the villain of the tale. Poe’s story is unconventional in that it only contains the villain and his victims, lacking any substantial heroic figure. The reader is left with no one to root for and no surety that justice will prevail. The Black Cat is a dark story with a villain menacing enough to rival even the greatest of antagonists.
Jeff Jensen explains that, “getting to the point where we can’t accept pure good or pure evil has been a 50-year evolution” (30). He writes that movies such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Godfather (1972), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) paved the way for this new concept of villains as heroes, where the leaders, law, and justice system are corrupt and full of greed. This style of using an unlikely hero is present in Showtime’s hit series, named after...

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... scholars and readers may suggest are vital to a villainous character. It is fair to ponder whether a villain can even exist without the presence of a hero. The few passionate souls that can sympathize or empathize with alcoholics may see our narrator as ill and even victimized rather than innately evil. Yet, a man that experiences his soul leaving his body to be replaced by a “more than fiendish malevolence” and the “fury of a demon” could be nothing but a miscreant. A person that can gouge out the eye of a beloved pet and feel little enough remorse to later kill the animal, and a person that could be so blinded by rage that he could kill his wife and only wonder where to hide the body is surely wicked. Only once a person sets aside the orthodox parameters of a villain as an antagonist opposing the hero can they see how neatly Poe’s narrator fits into the role.

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