Fiction Essay: Comparing and Contrasting “The Destructors” and “The Rocking House Winner”

Outline of the Essay

Motivation for the characters of the two stories:

Trevor: had a strong desire to become a leader of the gang.

Paul: had a desire to solve the money problems faced by his family.

Conflict in the Characters:

Trevor: worked for the cause of becoming a bigger part of the gang.

Paul: worked to prove to his family that he was lucky and had the strength to solve the financial problems faced by his family.

Tone of the Characters:

Trevor: Devious and Quite

Paul: Good hearted and outspoken

Characterization:

Trevor: becomes the leader of the gang.

Paul: remained almost same as in the beginning

Introduction

The success of any fiction story lies in the strength of its basis, which lies in its strong characters. In both the stories, “The Rocking House Winner” by D.H. Lawrence and “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, we can identify two main characters and their important roles. However, the characters of the two stories vary from each other significantly.

Thesis Statement

Fiction stories revolve around its characters, and every character possesses different characteristics. They play an important part in the story, and help Identifying the main characters will help in analyzing their role and importance in the story. This paper will focus on the differences of two main characters and their roles in two different stories.

Discussion

It is extremely important to form the characters of the fiction story for successfully setting the basis of the story to unfold. In the Lawrence's story, “The Rocking House Winner”, the tone of the main character Paul represents a young and ambitious person. The physical characteristics of this character go well with the tone, and conflict which he encounters throughout the story. On the other hand, the tone of the main character in Graham Greene's story “The destructors” Trevor, is stern and quite. His motivations and conflicts are significantly different from those of Paul. Both authors have revealed the characterizations of their main characters differently. The character and motivations of Trevor unfolds slowly while those of Paul are brought to the reader's attention immediately.

Paul, who is the main character, is introduced by Lawrence in the very first paragraph of the story (Lawrence, 365). Paul is very much depressed and worried as he believes that his family had run out of luck, and they are in desperate need of money to fulfill their needs. Although both the parents worked their income is not sufficient to keep up their social position. Paul represents the character of a young boy of this family; he was the eldest of his siblings and was ambitious. The character of Paul believes that he has more luck than his parents, and he wants to solve all the financial problems faced by his family. On the contrary, Greene introduced to his character Trevor in the story, which is s poor boy just as Paul. Trevor lived in London, and the story is shown to progress in the period of 9 years after the war. He did not ...