"The writer must be a participant in the scene.like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character." - Hunter S. Thompson. It is sort of how we venture through our day to day lives. We choose the setting and overall outlook, embracing life's unpredictable trials. We are the ultimate narrator and writer of our own tale, but it is fun to indulge in someone else's from time to time. Reading short stories fulfilled that pleasure, and had me comparing myself with their protagonists; also unveiling the curtain to what protagonists and antagonists truly are and the morals behind these stories. .
The protagonist is one of the most important characters, often initiating the main conflict of the story with the antagonist(Kennedy & Gioia 25). According to Kennedy & Gioia, the protagonist is, "the principle character who strives." Within every story, lives one who strives for a purpose. That purpose, deeming significant to each, is the motivation needed to go immoral lengths to satisfy their desires. In opposition to the Protagonist, stands the Antagonist, the most significant character or force that opposes the protagonists in a narrative. The antagonist may be another character, society itself, a force of nature, or even-in modern literature-conflicting impulses within the protagonist(Kennedy & Gioia 25). Without the antagonist, we virtually have no plot.
In our first story, A&P, our protagonist is presented to us as, Sammy, a teenage cashier in a small town A&P, north of Boston during the 1980s. Sammy, also the narrator, paints an immaculate painting of his bittersweet day at A&P, beginning when three young girls walk into his mundane, policy stricken, suburban town grocery store in bikinis, attracting his attention and the attention of his manager, Lengel.