Word: protagonists
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...effort lies in his failure to communicate this interpretation. Billy's imaginings form a series of outrageous cliches that protrude glaringly from the actual flow of plot. As a result, the fantasy sequences might well suggest a delightful spoof of the "81/2"--Marienbad treatment, where the inventions of the protagonist's teeming consciousness must be painstakingly divorced from what is really happening. Happily, Billy Liar makes no such intellectual demands on its audience...
...author suffers from the plight of his central characters, such as the insane hero of King Coffin who flatly states, "It was true that no human being could ever achieve a real contact with anything or anyone." Aiken's characters are always distant and blurred for author, protagonist, and reader...
Besides its philosophical protagonist, the work draws on a Goethean, even Shakespearean gamut of characters--from a university professor to the almost bestial beings that infest Central Park. And Miller's language rises at times to impressive prose poetry: "The wish to kill is never killed, but with some gift of courage one may look into its face when it appears and with a stroke of love--as to an idiot in the house--forgive...
...armaments expert with pacifist tendencies, could not understand why the expert developed a crippling block against completing the military research he was involved in. "The solution lay right before him," Hughes says. "For the student had quite unwittingly run up against a classic case of inner conflict. His protagonist's technical and military pride were locked in hidden combat with his leftist and pacifist leanings...
Frank Machin, protagonist of "This Sporting Life," approaches life as he approaches his rugby matches--brutally and without understanding. While exploring this not-too-subtle theme, the film presents several subtle and dramatic characters...