How Do Minor Characters Influence Major Characters? Essay

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The most memorable parts of a story can many different things: the point of view, characters, setting, symbolism or theme. All of these elements together play a critical role in the overall success of the story. The characters present within the imaginary world play the most critical part, as they are trying to navigate this fictional world. Their humanity connects to the reader’s humanity. Main characters can have a big presence in a story, but it is notable that often minor characters impact major characters. The relationship between characters in “The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brian and “everything that Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor demonstrates the influence that minor character can have. Most notably, in the two stories, the death of minor characters causes the major characters to have to go through significant change or transformation. Ted Lavender helps Jimmy in “The Things They Carried,” and Julian’s mom helps Julian in “Everything that Rises Must Converge” through their deaths: this forces Jimmy and Julian to build more realistic beliefs, and force them to better face reality—though Jimmy does this in a faster and clearer way that Julian.

Jimmy and Ted Lavender are the most important characters in “The Things They Carried,” and Julian’s mom and Julian are the most important characters in “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” According to Norton, there a few pieces of evidence that makes a person in a story qualify as a character. The character’s name, appearance, actions, thoughts, and the narrator’s comments on the character all have to be mentioned in the story. Therefore, we can conclude that Jimmy and Ted Lavender, Julian and his mother are all defined technically as characters because we know their names, appearances, actions and thoughts.

Jimmy has an imaginary relationship with Martha, but it is only the death of Ted Lavender that forces him to get in better touch with reality. Set during the Vietnam War, “The Things The Carried” shows contrast between the things the soldiers carried physically, and what they carried in their minds and hearts. The main character, first lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is genuinely in love with Martha, a woman back home in America. She writes to him, but is not in love with him, and very obviously does not express any romantic feelings for him. Thus, when Jimmy is away during the war, thinking of Martha is a form of escapism for him, as he engages in these fantasies that Martha loves him back. In order to further this fantasy, Jimmy carries a “good-luck charm from Martha” with him in order to feel closer to this imagining.

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In contrast, Jimmy also carries all the weapons of this very real, very dangerous world that he is living in. One day, outside of Than Khe, Ted Lavender, a minor character who lives in constant fear of the dangers around him, gets shot and dies. When that happens, Jimmy finally realizes where he is, who he is, the fact that Martha is a woman who does not love him, and becomes forcibly in touch with reality.

Julian, who lies to himself about his beliefs on race and racism, only begins to realize what real racism is when his mother dies. In the Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” at first glance, the main character Julian looks alike a levelheaded person who does not have any tendencies towards racism nor discrimination. However, the reader soon realizes that he is an imbalanced person who only wishes to not appear racist to distinguish himself from his mother, a minor character in the story, who is an elderly, white, racist woman. Even though Julian does not consider himself to be racist, he thinks, “he might make friends with some… Negro professor or lawyer.” This shows that he is still a very close-minded person who does not view black people as autonomous individuals. One day, when Julian and his mom are riding a bus, and he argues with his mother about her racist ideologies. Julian’s mother is firm in her beliefs that her son, a white man, is above all black people. When a black woman and her son get on the bus, Julian’s mother attempts to give the son a penny, a clearly condescending gesture. This angers the black young man’s mother and she strikes Julian’s mom. In the end, Julian’s mom’s face [is] fiercely distorted,” and she dies. At this point, readers can infer that Julian is going to transform himself into a more realistic, less self-deluding person, and be more liberated in “the world of guilt and sorrow.”

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