Caesar and Stephan

Caesar and Stephan

Introduction

The two characters, Caesar and Stephan are a part of two different stories; Old Boys Old Girls by Edward P. Jones and Letter from an Unknown Women by Max Ophals respectively. Both the characters have certain similarities which will be discussed in this paper. Both Caesar and Stephan committed sins; they were responsible for the deaths of those close to them and they were unaware of their sins, yet by the end of their stories they tried to atone for what they did.

Discussion

The character of Caesar is of a murderer who has killed two people. He has been arrested and caught only after the second murder. To make sure that he is punished for the crime that he has committed and for teaching him a lesson, he has been put in jail. He is sentenced to seven year imprisonment where he learns a lot. This is the place, where the readers get to know more about the position of the character. The mates of Caesar are also introduced rather he finds them only after he is imprisoned.

The imprisonment makes him a better man and he learns a lot from this experience. Though he is a murderer, towards the end of the story we get to know a completely different side of them. An old woman, who dies in front of Caesar, is given respect by him. He does so to ensure that she leaves the world with dignity. This is where we see that he has transformed into a completely different person and he has realised his crime; therefore, he is ensuring that he does something so that he can repent and seek forgiveness for what he has done.

On the other hand, Stephan in the Letter from an Unknown Woman is also a character who is ruthless and does not care about anything. He was a famous pianist and had an affair with a woman. He even impregnated her, but then left her. He then married again without any guilt and did not even remember the first woman in her life. He cannot even recall the event when he met her which is why he was unable to think about her.

One day, he received a letter from a woman whom he did not know, until he read the letter. After reading the whole story, he was moved and started getting flashbacks of the time when he was with her. The woman wrote the letter in her death bed which means that she was about to die. She mentioned in her letter that she might die even before Stephan reads the letter. After reading the letter he attempts to find her and their son, but finds that both of them are dead. This is when he realized that he has done something wrong. He starts to think of the ways in which he can repent. He finally decides to take responsibility of all his actions and lets himself to be killed in the duel...