The Truth About characters in earth driven story

In a story based on realism, I was unable to relate to any of the protagonist’s as people. 

 In every good fiction, as well as most nonfiction, there is a character I can identify with or who seems true to life.

 They have flaws and they also have strengths which is what makes them captivating.

In “The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair”, every character was not relatable. 

Marcus Goldman, the protagonist, has a lot of flaws which make him unlikable for me.

 He is very self-absorbed and takes advantage of his college students. 

This is shown in the words “The first time I wrote a literary piece.

 For me it was an experimental writing exercise.”(248) This statement shows how he is narcissistic rather than being altruistic.

 He has no regard for doing what is the right thing or what is ethical. “I am not interested in hearing about your feelings, O’Brian.

What you want is not to write a good novel. What you want is to impress and intimidate and lord over other people. 

Sometimes you make me feel like a poor stutterer trying to speak, struggling for each word as if each one were precious”(ibid)

 “O’Brian’s words painted Goldman as an arrogant bully who used his powers as a teacher as an ego boost.”

  Marcus is also very moralistic, which all the students hated him for,

 “I’m the only one here who doesn’t care about student opinion or what they think about me.”(248)

 This shows how Marcus has no remorse for hurting other people.who is the featured character in an earth diver story

He is also very self absorbed and lacks empathy and sympathy,

 “There is nothing more nauseating than listening to a fair-haired girl with nice teeth and make-up go on 

 on about the abuses she was subjected to as a child.”

 This shows how selfish Marcus is; he cares more about 

how his actions make other people feel rather than taking into consideration that they go through things that he doesn’t know about.

 The author does not do justice to Marcus because his character development isn’t good. 

The reader knows very little about him, because he only thinks of himself.

Another character lacking in humanity is Sheriff Judd. 

He makes racist comments, “You don’t have a thing in common with cops here.

They’re all white.

 Most of them are Irish.” (119) This shows how racist he is, and the minority characters play little to no role in the book.

The sheriff was also unable to connect with his son-in-law who had autism, “I think I’ve lost the ability to make people happy.” 

 Judd can’t even connect with his own daughter which makes him unlikable.

Clara is a character that seems necessary but not important because she plays no role in the story or in Marcus’s life.

Start of the piece

Background information on the author. 

For example, in this case a Canadian author, a college professor in a field related to writing and a person who was inspired by one of the people he knows. 

In Marcus’s introduction, we know that he is an author but we don’t know when he began his career as an author 

so it is not clear how much time has passed from when he published

 “The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair” to when the events in the novel take place.

 In Marcus’s introduction, we see that he is a well-educated individual who attended an Ivy league school and graduated with degrees in English and French.

The first question is why does the author choose a character who is a former English teacher and a published author to narrate his own story?

  These two factors are very important because of the style of writing. 

Marcus is writing about events that have happened to him, but at the same time he is telling the story as if it were a fictional novel.

 Marcus needs to be someone who can tell a story as if it were fiction. 

He needs to write from an omniscient point of view because he knows what everyone else is thinking and feeling, 

he also needs to be able to write from a first-person point of view because

 he needs to retell events as they happened from his perspective.

A summary of the plot. The prologue should be written in past tense to indicate that the book is taking place in the past.

 It should also include all of the information that will take place in the book,

 including point of view characters, historical events, locations and any characters that are important to story. 

A paragraph or two discussing how well you can explain what happens in your story in six sentences or less.