The Curse

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The Curse

In the story “The Curse” by Andre Dubus there is some questioning about who the main character is in the story. It would be easy to present an argument that the young female, who was raped in the bar, would be the main character; but after much emphasis is given to Mitchell Hayes, the bartender, it is clear that he is the main character after all. Hayes is seen as the main character because the emotional changes that take place in the story center around him, even though the woman causes these changes. As the protagonist in this story Hayes struggles with his own moral conflict about the decision he made that night in the bar. Hayes did not physically help the young female when she was getting raped in the bar and now he regrets his decision. Dubus portrays Hayes as a round character because Hayes undergoes a change from the beginning of the story until the end. The method of characterization that is used in this story is narrative description. Dubus gives facts “he was not a !
small man: his weight moved up and down in the hundred and seventies and he was five feet, ten inches tall” (paragraph 1) and implied judgment, the fact that he is not small would make us believe he was authoritative. Dubus uses two additional devices of characterization in this story: he reveals the character’s state of mind through surface details of his actions (excessive cigarette smoking to ease stress), he also reveals Hayes by letting the readers enter his consciousness, telling us what he thinks and feels. These tools allow us to discover what Dubus is trying to portray in the character Mitchell Hayes.
We learn about Mitchell Hayes not by first person accounts, but through indirect characterization. Dubus uses three methods, Mitchell’s words, actions, and thoughts, to bring out this character. Examples of his words are “I think I could have stopped it” (paragraph 7) and “I should have stopped it” (paragraph 19). His word...