Literature

The effect that a narrative or a particular character has on the reader constitutes one of the major goals of most great authors.  If a reader does not respond to a particular story, situation or human plight, the work does not succeed in this arena.  As a result, many characters are presented as worthy of some amount of sympathy despite negative qualities to their characters.  To this end, all three major male figures – Macbeth, Victor Frankenstein, and John Proctor – all deserve some degree of sympathy even though they made mistakes which sealed their doom.

    Macbeth, from Shakespeare’s play by the same name, deserves a small amount of sympathy from the reader.  Initially he is presented as a bold, courageous and successful warrior who has “unseamed” his enemy “from the nave to the chops.”  His King denotes him as a “valiant cousin” and “worthy gentleman,” a sentiment shared by the other thanes as well.  Unfortunately, Macbeth willingly allows himself to be led astray.  He succumbs to the prophecies of the witches and the belittling efforts of his wife to kill Duncan and take his throne.  Most readers can understand how hard it is to avoid pressure from one’s significant other and to shy away from even the lure of great power.  Even Macbeth understands that his flaw is “vaulting ambition which overleaps itself.”  This type of self awareness and Macbeth’s subsequent loss of his friends, wife, throne and life do impart a bit of sympathy, though probably based in pity, from the reader.  The reader can feel as if he might learn from Macbeth’s plight, even though he does not excuse Macbeth’s murderous methods.

    More deserving of reader sympathy is Victor Frankenstein from the novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus.   This main character follows his passion, dreaming for a way to create life.  While he did desire to be famous for it, he also truly felt that this project might help the world.  Most readers can understand the drive of passion, whether it be in a hobby, sport or work.  Yet, Frankenstein erred when he toyed with life and then abandoned his creation, who ultimately lamented the isolation and loneliness this caused by saying “yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us” (Shelly 94).  Frankenstein has shirked his responsibility as a “father” to his creature and sent him on a murderous rampage from which Frankenstein himself loses his brother, father, friend and wife.  Unlike Macbeth, Frankenstein tries to undo his error by ultimately destroying the mate he had promised to make for the creature, despite the warning that “I [the creature] shall be with you on your wedding night!” (Shelly 168).  The loss of these individuals merits Frankenstein some sympathy because everybody knows how it feels to try to do the right thing and end up losing something or someone he loves.  In fact, Frankenstein even tries to atone by attempting to steer Captain Walton away from his fate by issuing the warning, “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!” (Shelly 18-19).   This enables the reader to offer more sympathy to Frankenstein than to Macbeth.

    Finally the reader should impart the most sympathy onto John Proctor of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.  Proctor is guilty of Puritan-era infidelity, yet he is clearly a victim of what today’s society would term a ‘stalker’.”  A young girl, Abigail, flirts with him incessantly and carries out a fiendish plot against him when he denies her and turns to his wife. Unfortunately for him, Abigail is no meek child.  She is a master manipulator, evidenced in her ability to get her friends to say and do whatever she says.  Her threats, such as “And mark this.  Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (I, ii) strike fear into Betty and Mary’s hearts and guarantee their dedication to her.  Proctor is not so lucky.  He has fallen victim to Abigail’s advances, as many men unfortunately will.  Yet, he does see the error of his ways and confesses it to the men at the trial.    She thinks to dance with me on my wife's grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly.  God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat.  But it is a whore's vengeance, and you must see it (III,i).   He not only refuses to leave or slander his own wife, but he refuses Abigail as well. While he confesses his own sin, he refuses to hurt anyone else: “I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another.  I have no tongue for it” (III,iii).  Thus, the reader sympathizes with Proctor’s plight, forgiving his infidelity because of his courage and strength in the end.

    All men deserve and attain varying degrees of sympathy from the reader for their misfortunes and sins.  Macbeth deserves the least because he learned the least from his ordeal.  Frankenstein understood his sin, but learned a bit too late, so he deserves a slightly higher level of sympathy.  John Proctor, who is seen as the biggest victim despite his lust, earns the highest level of sympathy.