Literary Character Theory: Sympathy in Anti-Heroism?

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The purpose of anti-hero characters is never to be known as either a hero or a villain of a particular book or movie. The character is neutral; as in his characteristics heavily depicts as the antagonist albeit still in the centerfold of the protagonist. The only known way to know if the character is the anti-hero or not is to meticulously follow his traits and the spotlight. If he is the main focus on literature and/or film and if his traits are decoded as a typical villain, then that character is the anti-hero.

No one knows the purpose of anti-heroism in literature. Yet as we read through the characters’ backstories, there is a significant chance the intention of this particular unique character is to grant sympathy. Us, as readers, are not entirely sure why we should feel sympathy for the anti-hero characters. Although, the majority of the sources in literature were that these characters are depicted as mentally unstable. A myriad of anti-hero characters are diagnosed with mental illnesses, such as borderline personality disorder and major depression. What does this really say about this? The entire reason for anti-heroism in literature is to grant sympathy for the audience.

Examples of anti-heroism in literature that allows us to commiserate with the characters are Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, Sonny’s Blues, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. What these novels and the short story have in common is each character per work has mental illnesses and disorders that have affected their lives. From alcoholism to a drug addiction, from major depression to borderline personality disorder, these four anti-hero works will respond to the theory of commiseration and empathy to the readers.

Sonny’s Blues is a short story written by James Baldwin. According to Baldwin’s story, the unnamed narrator is describing his life living in Harlem, New York, a neighborhood notable for its poverty. There, he describes his brother, Sonny, who is suffering from a substance use disorder, namely heroin. “I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse [heroin], he couldn’t have been much older than these boys were now,” the narrator said as Baldwin talked about how substance abuse at a young age can be effective for a lifetime (Baldwin 1). “These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.” The narrator was concerned and worrisome about the cause and effect of drugs; it has been the source of living in a poor community and how much the intoxication is physically affecting their lives.

Baldwin vitally used the theme of suffering, which is common for most substance use disorders. There are more than one type of suffering that the author used for Sonny’s Blues, albeit the most notable would be anger. Prior to their mother’s death, the narrator felt angered because Sonny was peer pressured into the wrong type of crowd and he has been abandoning his brother for drugs. His anger led him to fail his job to watch out for Sonny and to keep him safe from harm, as he said, “…for I was filled with that icy dread again… I was trying to remember everything I’d heard about dope addiction and I couldn’t help watching Sonny for signs. I wasn’t doing it out of malice. I was trying to find out something about my brother” (Baldwin 7). The narrator was overprotective of Sonny after hearing a story from their mother about the death of their father’s brother. In the flashback, the mother told the narrator in regards with their late uncle, “Your father says he heard his brother scream when the car rolled over them… and he heard them white men [Klansmen] shouting, and the car kept on a-going and it ain’t stopping till this day. And, time your father got down the hill, his brother weren’t nothing but blood and pulp” (Baldwin 9). This story caused the narrator to feel paranoid about the doable mutual fate to Sonny. When he failed to save Sonny from heroin, the narrator took his anger on himself and his brother due to feeling the mutual amount of failure as their late father. Hence, this led to a prolonged separation until the passing of their mother.

The anti-heroism James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues are the narrator and Sonny themselves, and they are granted sympathy by the readers. The audience can indeed commiserate with the two brothers as one suffers through a life-altering drug addiction whilst the other suffers through anger and contrition that cost their bonding to depart for many years. Baldwin’s intention in his short story is to give a moral value that in spite of the anger within your estranged family, you still love them no matter what, and you should never blame yourself for causing certain demises to your loved ones.

One would feel a sense of commiseration towards Sonny as they read about his substance abuse; after estranging himself from the family, he was living in an incorrigible life whereas he used drugs as a form of escapism from the darkness. Sonny’s Blues makes us assume that Sonny and the narrator are the main antagonists, though they are still the protagonists under the spotlight. Protagonists who were living in a world of prolonged darkness without each other [poverty and drugs], and allowing their anger and addiction to get the best of them brings a sense of empathy to them: “Of course one of the most demoralizing consequences of drug abuse is often incarceration. Many individuals find themselves in jail or prison due to an aspect of their life that they feel they have no control over” (Therrell). It truly makes us feel empathetic for them.

In The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, the anti-heroism is dealt with a combination of heartbreak and abhorrence. The main protagonist, who was accused of being the antagonist in the beginning, was divorced from her husband due to her alcoholism. Similar to Sonny’s Blues, this shared the same theme of substance abuse. Whenever we perceive a character undergoing drugs and alcohol abuse, we must dig deeper into their minds in order to understand what makes us want to feel sympathetic for them.

Starting from the commencement of Hawkins’s novel, Rachel, the main protagonist, lamented, “I have to accept it, there’s no point trying to push it away. I’m going to feel terrible all day, it’s going to come in waves that twist it in the pit of my stomach, the anguish of shame, the heat coming to my face, my eyes squeezed tight as though I could make it all disappear” (Hawkins 13). Rachel has been living in the state of misery, which led to her alcoholism. We instantaneously get a sense of commiseration with her until as the story goes on, her ex-husband, Tom, irritable exclaimed her on the phone, “I have had enough of this, all right? You’ve frightened Anna, you know that? It’s all I could do to get her not to ring the police. Leave us alone. Stop calling me, stop hanging around, just leave us alone. I don’t want to speak to you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you anywhere near my family. You can ruin your own life if you want to, but you’re not ruining mines” (Hawkins 41). Our empathy for Rachel would quickly change to abhorrence; it seems that she has been stalking her ex-husband and his new wife, Anna, who was previously his mistress prior to their divorce, as if she was mentally unstable and desperate for love.

However, we cannot come into conclusions that easily. Subsequent to the disheartening phone call from her ex, Rachel admits, “I don’t know what I’ve done. What did I do? Between five o’clock and ten fifteen, what was I doing? Why was Tom looking for me? What did I do to Anna” (Hawkins 41)? Later, she wept, “On the train, the tears come, and I don’t care if people are watching me; for all they know, my dog might have been run over. I might have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I might be a barren, divorced, soon-to-be-homeless alcoholic” (Hawkins 50). It was not Rachel’s fault that she, due to the incessant alcohol consumption, had a faded memory. She saw nothing but the black void as she was intoxicated and she inadvertently passed by her ex-husband’s house without her own knowledge. To make matters more disheartening, Rachel is suffering from major depression, prior and subsequent to her divorce, and she turned to alcohol as a form of escapism, in spite it only worsens her condition: “Suburban wives must seem like they have nothing to escape from… It’s about the abrupt and vicious end of a story. Rachel mourns for the story of her past life, safe and loved in her impeccably decorated home with her impeccably stylish husband” (Farough).

There are a myriad of reasons why we, as readers of Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train, should either feel sympathy or hatred for Rachel. We feel empathy for her because of what Tom did that caused her to become incorrigibly heartbroken and then abusing herself with alcohol. We feel abhorrence towards her because while intoxicated, she was stalking her ex and his wife outside of their house, almost to the point of kidnapping their child, even though she has no recollection of any of these happening. However, we should feel more sympathy for the anti-hero, Rachel, and not despise her, no matter what she did subconsiously. The only characters we should feel abhorrent to are Tom and Scott.

Despite that I heavily abhor this book — and this author — another character one should feel empathy for is Amy Elliot-Dunne from Gillian Flynn’s novel, Gone Girl. Compatible to Rachel Watson from The Girl on the Train, Amy suffered from the same amount of anti-heroism that was caused by a disheartening experience. In spite of her protagonist role in the novel, she is most likely depicted as well the main antagonist albeit with a mental illness, a type of personality disorder, more likely, caused by an unwanted past she despised. In her perspective, Amy claimed, “I should never have been born,” whilst telling her true story to the audience, “my mother had five miscarriages and two stillbirths before me… all named Hope… I would have been Hope 8, if things had gone badly” (Flynn 220–221). Amy revealed more about her struggles as a perfectionist she was forced to become growing up, “But I’ve been jealous too, always — seven dead dancing princesses. They get to be perfect without even trying, without even facing one moment of existence, while I am stuck here on earth, and every day I must try, and every day is a chance to be less than perfect” (Flynn 222). Apparently, Amy has envied due to the fact that she was forced to be somebody she is not in order to gain the attention she wanted. She had to go through all those difficulties to be a perfect person; it seems she has a severe case of narcissism, and her deceased and unborn sisters before her were “lucky” that they do not have to try. By the time of the fifth anniversary with her husband, Nick Dunne, appears, everything will drastically change, much to the suspense of the audience.

In the nutshell, Amy disappeared without a trace on the day of her and Nick fifth anniversay. Prior to their marriage, Amy has been triggered by her own mental illness when she told the readers, “I can’t help it, it’s what I’ve always done: the way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. What persona feels good” (Flynn 222)? Though it is not entirely specified what type of personality disorder Amy is diagnosed with, it is evident she has a narcissistic personality disorder or even borderline personality disorder. The former showed Amy forced herself to alter personalities due to her irrational obsession with attention by others around her; “…pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be” (Flynn 223). The latter deciphered Amy’s combination of recklessness and impetuous actions; “So I may have gone a bit mad… but it’s so very necessary. Nick must be taught a lesson” (Flynn 235).

“The difficulty with personality disorder is that they have a real difficulty with a core identity or feeling of self. Their core self feels very unstable, so they’ll do things to kind of help them feel more stable, and that will often be things like pulling people in to take care of them or in behaviors such as cutting themselves or parasuicidal behaviors…” (Dr. Puri). Apart from her personality disorder, Amy has gone through a severe self-mutilation and a suicidal thought: “So the self-mutilation was worth it. Still, hours later, the slice burns under my sleeves, under my tourniquet” (Flynn 220); “The first was the gun. I was going to shoot myself” (Flynn 280). The true cause of Amy’s near-lethal self-harming will shock the audience when they find out the real reason why she disappeared from the very beginning.

Overall, Amy Elliot-Dunne’s personality from Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn might as well grant more hatred for her rather than commiseration prior to her vanishing. Although, what the readers should know is they should dig deeper into her mind (and continue to read through Nick Dunne’s point of views in the novel) in order to know the vital reason she became mentally unstable. The purpose of this novel is to be aware of our emotions for the anti-hero protagonist; we may be unsure if we should despise Amy or feel sorry for Amy, but that is perfectly okay. This is the main catch of anti-heroism; our perplexity for empathy on the mentally insane character is what interests the audience into reading this particular type of literature. Therefore, it is meant to make us feel ambivalent for the character; we should all, as ourselves, to feel sympathy for Amy, not abhorrence.

Lastly, there is Randle Patrick McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Comparing him with Amy Elliot-Dunne, McMurphy is, too, diagnosed with a mental illness in spite of having normal traits. As evident, Chief Bromden, the Native American descent and selective-mute narrator of the novel, was one of the first patients who met McMurphy when the latter first arrived the mental institution, claiming that he was a gambling addict: “My name is McMurphy, buddies, RP McMurphy, and I’m a gambling fool” (Kesey 12). There is more to McMurphy as his records are read aloud, “McMurry [McMurphy], Randle Patrick. Committed by the state from the Pendleton Farm for Correction. For diagnosis and possible treatment. Thirty-five years old. Never married. Distinguished Servive Cross in Korea, for leading an escape from a Communist prison camp. A dishonorable discharge, afterward, or insubordination. Followed by a history of street brawls and barroom fights and a series of arrests for Drunkenness, Assault, and Battery, Disturbing the peace, gambling, and one arrest for [Statutory] Rape” (Kesey 45). Not only is McMurphy was diagnosed with an unspecified mental illness, he is considered as a reckless delinquent when he said, “…just when they figure I’m about to do the dead opposite [about the rules]” (Kesey 26).

Prior to his arrival to the mental institution, it is revealed that McMurphy was a war veteran. After his forced discharge from the service, he has committed a myriad of crimes and went as far as raping a minor girl. Albeit his mental illness is not entirely specified, it seems that McMurphy was diagnosed with a personality disorder, mainly antisocial, due to his severe recklessness and social issues with people around him: “…[he’s] a psychopath, in the formal DSM-IV Antisocial Personality Disorder sense of the word. In his intake with the head psychiatrist at the hospital and in subsequent discussions of what to do with him, we learn that McMurphy has a long history of law-breaking and incarceration” (Lou). As the novel goes on, McMurphy resumes to remain deviant against Nurse Ratched’s, the Big Nurse, wishes. As the anti-hero in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Randle Patrick McMurphy is considered to the readers as one of the most abhorred characters in literature due to his persistent delinquency. As mentioned, the vital factor of anti-heroism is to have mixed feelings for a certain fictional character varying on their traits. McMurphy was one of the characters, along with Amy Elliot-Dunne, to feel either empathetic or abhorrence for him. We instantaneously despise them for their acts, but then we began to feel sorry for them because of what they have gone through in their past lives.

McMurphy was a war veteran and he was undergoing a myriad of traumatic vivid perceptions that are permanently trapped within his mind. As a form of escapism, McMurphy may have put himself into a gambling addiction and performed every devious deeds, in order to free himself from his own mental incarceration. His antisocial behavior may have been from the battlefields; he did not want to have to deal with more antagonism with others. As his desire to remain insubordinate in the institution, McMurphy was still possibly feeling incarcerated by the trauma at the Korean War, and he was simply wanting to escape from it all. Hence, there is a sense of more commiseration for Randle Patrick McMurphy rather than abhorrence.

Anti-heroism is perhaps one of the most unique themes in literature. The whole intention is to perplex the readers into assuming whether their characters should be judged as the antagonist to abhor or the protagonist to compassionate. In general, the term for “anti-hero” is neutral and ambivalent; it is a character that is truly somewhere in between the benevolent side and the malevolent side. It does not have to force the readers to despise them or to admire them. That would be up to the readers to decide themselves.

In spite of all the negative actions that these characters have done in their respective plotlines, we should never turn them down. We should always feel the sense of empathy for these anti-hero characters. The reason why some of them turned to alcohol, drugs, and deviant crimes is because they wanted to find escapism from the reality they are incarcerated in. The majority of the anti-heroes seemingly became the villains of literature is namely due to their mental instabilities. Their mental disorders were caused by the traumatic past they suffered from. They could not resist that unreasonable events can happen unexpectedly and it is nothing they can do about it.

If we ever step into the shoes of Sonny, Randle, Amy, and Rachel, we’d vividly understand the suffering they went through. We’d perceive the heartbreaks, mental instabilities, family struggles, and trauma that have been eternally stuck into their perceptions. Their actions may be wrong, though deep within them, there is something that they wanted to make a right. When finding out the truths about the struggling anti-hero characters, the audience would start to feel sorry for them.

Therefore, the purpose of anti-heroism in literature is to grant sympathy for the readers, as a way to understand the horrors of life.

• © by Nicole Cheng, 2016

Bibliography:

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” PDF file. 1957.

Duca, Lauren, Dr. Paul Puri. The Huffington Post. “Entertainment: A Psychiatrist Weighs in on Amy & Nick in ‘Gone Girl.’” Web. 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/amy-gone-girl-psychiatrist_n_5922842.html

Farough, Amanda. Freelance Writer & Editor. The Savage, Hungry Beauty of “The Girl on the Train.” “Escapism & (Lack of) Control.” Web. 2016. http://amandafarough.com/articles/the-savage-hungry-beauty-of-the-girl-on-the-train/

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. United States by Crown Publishers. Crown Publishing Group, Random House, New York. Print. 2012.

Hawkins, Paula. The Girl on the Train. Riverhead Books. Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Print. 2015.

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Berkley. Penguin Random House LLC. New York. Print. 1962.

Lou, Katie. PsychoCinematic, BlogSpot. “’One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and Into a Pile of Work: A Defense of Nurse Ratched.” Web. 2010. http://psychocinematic.blogspot.com/2010/10/one-flew-over-cuckoos-nest-and-into.html

Therrell, Jennifer. Jennifer’s Portfolio, BlogSpot. “Sonny’s Blues and the Effects of Drug Abuse.” Saluda, SC. Web. 2004. http://jennsportfolio.blogspot.com/2004/11/sonnys-blues-and-effects-of-drug-abuse.html