Antihero – Literary Terms

 

Antihero – Literary Terms

Antihero:

A central CHARACTER, or PROTAGONIST, who lacks traditional heroic qualities and virtues (such as idealism, courage, and steadfastness). An antihero may be comic, antisocial, inept, or even pathetic while retaining the sympathy of the reader. Antiheroes are typically in conflict with a world they cannot control or whose values they reject. Although elements of the antihero may be found in Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605), the type is more often found in modern FICTION and DRAMA. Representative antiheroes include James Joyce's Leopold Bloom in Ulysses; Edith Wharton's Lily Bart in The House of Mirth; Clyde Griffiths in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy; Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman; and Yossarian in Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

See CHARACTER.