On Eccentric Protagonists
Sean Glatch | October 9, 2023 |
Think of some of your favorite characters in literature. Chances are, they’re probably a little odd.
Well-developed characters are often strange and complex, because people in real life are also strange and complex. A dash of eccentricity goes a long way in crafting memorable characters. Let’s take a closer look at how authors wield weirdness in their fiction.
Want more craft tips? Be the first to receive our writing advice in your inbox.
Close Study: “Mr. Frog” by Alanna Schubach
Note: this story contains mentions of suicide and sexual assault.
“Mr. Frog” is a stunning example of magical realism—a literary genre in which, broadly, an element of fantasy is incorporated into a story set in real life. In this story, the mythical creatures that populate Japanese folklore turn out to be real, and one creature in particular, a river spirit, inadvertently helps the protagonist navigate (her seeming lack of) grief after her boyfriend commits suicide.
Naomi, the protagonist, is a wonderfully complex character. That complexity is apparent despite the brevity of the short story form. We begin, right away, with a series of contradictions that shape her present life: she only finds peace when surrounded by noise; she finds solace in horror movies; her body and mind seem to be operating independently. Anyone who has struggled with grief might understand how those contradictions shape our new lives. Throughout these contradictions, Naomi has been meaning to write an email to her dead boyfriend’s mother.
It is through these contradictions that Naomi meets Mr. Frog, a kappa (or river spirit) who finds himself indebted to her. Mr. Frog is Japanese folklore brought to life: his physical features—such as the indentation on his head—as well as his behaviors, like cucumber eating and stealing people’s souls, are all consistent with his mythology.
Mr. Frog’s magical realist intrusion into Naomi’s story helps her confront her grief. Despite being a mythical creature, Mr. Frog is equally complex. Like his mythology, Mr. Frog can be both caring and malevolent, and his intentions with Naomi are not immediately clear. Why does he spend so much time with her? Is it just because she saved his life? It is also worth noting that Mr. Frog is a kappa for a river flowing through a red light district, which makes him a manifestation of some darker sexual impulse.
It is each character’s unclear and conflicting behaviors and motives that bring them to a collision against the border of sex and death.
After a terrifying incident in which one of Naomi’s students tries to have sex without consent, Naomi uses her “favor” with Mr. Frog, and Mr. Frog steals the student’s soul. (In Japanese folklore, this is the shirikodama, a mythical organ containing the soul somewhere inside the person’s anus.) When confronted with the opportunity to keep feeding Mr. Frog the souls of different men, Naomi almost enters a spree of sexually charged soul-nappings, seeing within herself the same urge to kill that “must” have led to the suicide of her boyfriend.
Mr. Frog, meanwhile, is simply following his nature. As he tells Naomi, kappa have no orientation towards good or evil, as those are human morals and inventions. Being a kappa for a river that runs alongside a red-light district, Mr. Frog’s raunchiness is just as inherent to his personality as his propensity for stealing shirikodama. Here, then, is a figure in which sex and death coexist chaotically. He is, in many ways, a manifestation of Naomi’s darker impulses. When Mr. Frog steals the shirikodama of Naomi’s student, she feels the same way as when she learned of her boyfriend’s suicide. Those two events seem as indistinguishable as the sky and the river that sunless January morning when her boyfriend killed himself. When Naomi looks at herself in the mirror, she sees a desire for blood.
Only when Naomi confronts this taste for blood is she reminded of her own humanity. This is enough to save the soul of the second man she is about to sacrifice to Mr. Frog. Acknowledging herself in the mirror brings about her killing, not of another human, but of Mr. Frog. She swallows the liquid in his skull, then immediately purges it. Perhaps this also purges the taste for blood inside of her: before she passes out, she utters the one thing left fluttering in her body—”Sam,” the name of her dead boyfriend. After this, she composes an email to Sam’s mother.
Grief works in powerful ways throughout this story, but most perniciously, it operates through Naomi’s self-abnegation. The ways she distances herself from herself leads her to almost renounce her humanity and become an agent of Mr. Frog’s hunger. Although the student who tries to assault her deserved repercussions, was it right that his soul be taken from him? Where is the line between accountability and agency? These are the kinds of questions that arise when sex and death intermingle. And, although Naomi is right to seek vindication and justice, she forgets to seek the most important things of all: healing and self-forgiveness. The borders of sex and death become almost indistinguishable in this story, but it is Naomi’s humanity that draws a concrete line between the two.
Mixed throughout this story is an exploration of what it means to belong somewhere, the ways that language shapes this belonging, and the complexities of human desire. That a short story can explore all of these themes is quite a feat. Pay close attention to how magical realism operates here: it both drives Naomi far away from herself, and eventually leads her home.
Craft Perspective: “Why Eccentrics Find a Natural Home in Fiction” by Carlos Fonseca Suarez
Some of the most iconic characters in all of literature are “eccentrics”—geniuses, or otherwise incomprehensible people, whose obsessions drive them into situations we would never ourselves get into. Not every protagonist needs to be an eccentric. But, a dash of eccentricity goes a long way in helping you shape your characters.
Why do we love eccentrics so much? Here are a few reasons:
- They live entertaining, imaginative lives. We live vicariously through the stories of characters whose experiences we will probably never have ourselves. I assume that most readers of this article will not become obsessed with capturing a mythical whale. Thankfully, Captain Ahab (Moby Dick) has us covered.
- They feel our emotions to the extreme. Jay Gatsby’s (The Great Gatsby) obsession with Daisy’s green light isn’t just poetic—it captures the intensity we feel when the person we love is beautiful and unattainable, shining on the other side of a dock we’ll never cross. This, on top of it also representing the unattainability of the American Dream, makes Gatsby’s reaching for the green light heartbreaking and deeply relatable.
- They often combine different, complicated themes. Isabel Archer (The Portrait of a Lady) is the perfect conduit to explore themes of personal freedom, a woman’s autonomy, the old vs. new world, responsibility, family, and the human costs of money.
- They’re outsiders. A true eccentric has no inherent place in the world. There is nowhere for them to seek it; they must build it themselves. Many readers may resonate with this feeling, even if our lives are more humdrum than those of eccentric protagonists.
- They remain enigmatic. Our attempts to understand any given eccentric character often strings us through the story or novel. As we try to unravel them, we inevitably fall in love with them, despite how flawed and complicated they may be.
The eccentric character shows up most frequently in the novel. After all, a novel’s length naturally loans it more complexity. But, short stories can also wield these characters effectively.
Take Naomi, the protagonist of “Mr. Frog.” Is she eccentric? Well, she’s obsessed with horror movies, talks to a morally ambiguous river sprite, and, after a long period of refusing to self-reflect, recognizes within herself a desire to kill. Can you identify any place on this earth where she fits right in?
Naomi is fascinating for all of the above reasons. Her conversations with Mr. Frog are strange and entertaining. Her motives throughout the story are both powerful and illusive. Her relationships with men are never clear cut. And, as a protagonist, she’s a great conduit for navigating the themes of language, belonging, and sex & death. These elements draw the reader in and keep them reading, wondering where her life will end up at the turn of the final page.
Naomi’s eccentricity allows the author to, as Suarez notes in his article, “speak of an internal world that refuses to translate neatly into an exterior reality.” Naomi’s inner life is strange and hard to reconcile with the real world; we learn more about both her internal world and the external world simply by following her story. It is the goal of the fiction writer to wield eccentricity in such a way that the story “follow[s these] eccentrics to the very ending without destroying the secret that drives them.”
Of course, your own characters don’t need to be geniuses, eccentrics, or psychological case studies. After all, your characters should be human first. But, just a dash of eccentricity will go a long way in making your characters original, compelling, and delightful to read.
For more tips on character development, check out these articles:
