Critical Lens Essay
“All literature shows us the power of emotion. It is emotion, not reason, that motivates characters in literature.”
-paraphrased from an interview with Duff Brenna
According to Duff Brenna, “All literature shows us the power of emotion. It is emotion, not reason, that motivates characters in literature.” In other words literature is an expression of emotion and the emotion is what makes the characters real. Emotions not reason is what drives the characters. This is shown to be true in Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare and Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer.
Romeo in Romeo and Juliet bases all his decisions and motivations on his love for Juliet. The power of love conquers all in this tale. Romeo does not care that both their families have an intense hatred for each other. His love for her will triumph over everything else and one can see this through his characterization. From the very beginning of this tale, Romeo is portrayed as an emotional person who is spontaneous and enthusiastic as well as dramatic. He goes from being heart broken and lovesick over Rosaline to falling deeply madly in love with Juliet just from her first sighting. He lives his life through his emotions with no reasoning. Another example of this would be when Romeo kills Tybalt. Tybalt not only threatens Romeo’s love for Juliet but kills Romeo’s best friend who he also loved. Romeo, now full of love and intense hatred for someone, kills Tybalt. He never stopped to think what this might do but just acted on his emotions.
Chris McCandless in Into the Wild was another character who let his emotions motivate him. Although a very outgoing person, Chris longed and searched for what he thought was “ultimate freedom”, which is one of the main themes in this book. Chris did not care for money or material things and more than anything he refused to live life by rules of the man. Chris’ whole journey, especially to Alaska, is fueled by the idea of “ultimate freedom”. Everyone Chris comes across is told of how he has set out to “live in the wild” free from authority and rules and structure. This theme of “ultimate freedom” is so strongly set in Chris’ head through his past emotions of disconnect and disappointment of family, the corporate world, and the way in which people treated each other. At one point in the book, Wayne Westerberg recalls how Chris was very intelligent but thought “he spent too much time trying to make sense of the world to figure out why people were bad to each other too often”. Chris lived through his emotions and was not afraid to let people know.
Both Romeo and Chris had extreme emotions that drove them to dive into what they were focused on without reasoning. While Romeo acted on love Chris acted on his love for nature and his disgust with authority. They both felt their emotions intensely and then had tunnel vision and went for it regardless of what the consequences may be. In both these stories, the main character is driven by emotions not reasoning.
“All literature shows us the power of emotion. It is emotion, not reason, that motivates characters in literature.” This is shown to be true in Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare and Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer. Both main characters in these stories are driven by their intense emotions. One is driven by love and the other through the theme of “ultimate freedom” through his emotions of love, disconnect, and disappointment. Through these examples one can see how emotion is what motivates characters in literature. It is what makes the audience feel that these characters are real and feel what we feel.
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