Student Question
What are the definitions of a protagonist and an antagonist?
Quick answer:
A protagonist is the central character in a story, often driving the plot through their motivations and conflicts. They are typically the focus through whom the audience experiences the narrative. An antagonist opposes the protagonist, creating conflict. While both roles are usually filled by human characters, they can also be non-human, such as nature or an abstract force. The protagonist and antagonist define the story's central conflict, shaping its narrative direction.
A really valuable book on writing is The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. (See reference link below.) He defines a protagonist as the character whose motivation makes everything happen. The antagonist is the character who opposes the protagonist. The antagonist does not necessarily have to be human. And the protagonist does not necessarily have to be human. But one or the other should be human. A protagonist is obviously more important in a play or movie because they involve people interacting with people. If a man is trying to conquer Mount Everest in a story, the man is the protagonist and the mountain is the antagonist, which would make it a "Man against Nature" story. If a man is trying to survive in a flood, as in William Faulkner's "The Old Man," that would make it a "Nature against man" story, and nature would be the protagonist. Godzilla...
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is the protagonist in that awful movie. The protagonist, according to Lajos Egri, should be so strongly motivated that he, she, or it will drive the story to the very end. Dorothy is the protagonist inThe Wizard of Oz. She is just a little girl, but she is determined to get back to Kansas. In Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers," the protagonist does not even appear. He is the unidentified "friend" in Chicago who wants Ole Andresen killed. Ole, of course, is the antagonist. In Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants," the protagonist is the American and the antagonist is the girl he calls Jig. He wants her to have an abortion, and she wants to have the baby.
If this is meant to be a general exploration of the topic, definition of terms would be essential here. The protagonist is the central character or figure in a work. It is usually through their eyes or their perception that the author wants us to understand the central conflict of the work. The protagonist is sometimes likable, and sometimes demonstrates behaviors that are not entirely likable, but they are our "guides" for lack of a better term. For example, in the drama Oedipus by Sophocles, the protagonist is the lead character for whom the title of the play is derived. The antagonist is someone who, in their name, "antagonizes" the protagonist. They are the individual against whom the protagonist is set against. The antagonist "opposes the hero or protagonist in drama." For example, Abigail Williams in the antagonist in Arthur Miller's work, The Crucible. She operates as the antagonizing force to John Proctor, who is the drama's protagonist. In distilling both characterizations, I would look for the central conflict in the work in question and which characters stand on which side of said conflict.