The Cowards (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Josef Škvorecký
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: 1945
- Setting: Kostelec, Czechoslovakia
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Communism or communists, Revolutions, 1940’s, World War II, Jazz music, Military life or service, Nazism or Nazis, Prisoners of war, Czechoslovakia or Czechoslovakians
- Locales: Czechoslovakia
Characters Discussed
Danny Smiricky (SMIH-rzhihts- kee), an eighteen-year-old jazz saxophone player in a provincial town in Czechoslovakia. As the narrator of the novel, Danny reveals that he is less concerned with the major political upheavals occurring around him during the final days of the Nazi occupation in his town in May, 1945, than with his own personal future. Infatuated with a girl named Irena, Danny fantasizes about the kinds of heroic deeds he could perform to win her heart. Arrested for a cavalier act of defiance in the face of the Nazi forces, Danny is saved from...
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