Although study guides and critiques of classic works exist everywhere, the wealth of information can be just as alarming as figuring out the central idea of the work on one’s own. Lists of characters, descriptions of themes, and analyses of passages are all helpful pieces of the puzzle, but they can be overwhelming.
Sometimes, decoding a classic book simply means asking one question: What does the protagonist want? Here are some answers to that question for four classic novels regularly taught in high school and college.
Fahrenheit 451
Guy Montag, Ray Bradbury's most well-known character, wants freedom of thought and action. He knows this after his epiphany that his life was not his own, precipitated by his acquaintance with Clarisse, the rebellious girl who simply asks him, “Are you happy?”
The question is one that Montag has never considered. In the futuristic society in which he lives, the idea of happiness does not come up. People do their work, firemen burn books, housewives enact mindless plays with people in their video walls, and the unhappy people cower in their homes afraid to express an original thought or make a movement of any kind.
Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein wants glory for bringing a new form of life into the world. When he begins to create his monster, nothing else matters – not family, friends, school, common sense. Nothing but the desire for glory. In the end, as he dies on Robert Walton’s ship, he realizes where glory has driven him, yet he still urges Walton’s own men on to the same disastrous end.
Students who try to get around reading this novel by watching the Kenneth Branagh film, which is the closest adaption of the novel to this date, will miss this major theme and motivation. Branagh’s movie changes Frankenstein’s motivation for making the creature to a desire to enable people to last forever. This desire is shown in a scene after his mother dies. In the actual book, the reaction to his mother’s death is one line buried in the middle of a long paragraph: “My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform . . .”
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain’s classic novel has quite a bit in common with, interestingly enough, Fahrenheit 451. Though set in 1840 on the Mississippi River and involving a teenage narrator, the protagonist’s desire is essentially the same as Montag’s. Huck wants the freedom to live his life without oppressive rules and regulations. He also discovers that he wants to live in a world where people treat one another in a decent manner.
That realization is occasioned, inevitably, by his maturation and growing awareness of the effects that slavery has on the individual slave. Huck’s own oppression by his ruthless Pap and the pious Mrs. Watson means nothing compared to Jim’s real and psychological shackles. Huck has no interest in saving other people when this novel begins, and he has no interest in growing up, but both are necessary for him to get his heart’s desire in the end.
If one views Atticus Finch as this novel’s main character, the answer is simple and related to his job and the main plot: justice. He wants to live in a just world, which is why he became a lawyer. He wants justice for Tom Robinson because it is his due. He wants his children to leave Boo Radley (the other “mockingbird” in the novel) alone because they are not doing him justice by making fun of him.
If one views Scout as the protagonist – and after all, she does narrate the story – the answer is she wants to have fun. She is a child, and that is the child’s main duty: to have fun. In comparison, when Tom Sawyer shows up at the end of Huckleberry Finn, a move that critics will debate forever, we understand that his character is solely motivated by fun, while Huck is maturing into an adult. Scout matures and learns about the nature of justice through the course of the novel, but her motivation does not change.
Reading a classic novel can be a challenge because it is often difficult to understand what to focus on. Sometimes study guides can be helpful, but the wealth of information in them can be both a blessing and a curse.
Asking one question can help the reader get a handle on the overall design of a book. In an essay for writers, Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.” Vonnegut knew that the key to writing and the key to reading are the same: What does the person want?
References
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Ballantine, 1987.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Classics, 2006.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Longman, 2007.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. BookSurge Classics, 2004.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction. Berkley, 2000.
Shaun Perkins - Shaun Perkins, teacher, poet, storyteller, porch-sitter, beekeeper, gardener, writer, has been a high school and university teacher for ...
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