Villains of Stories
Villains of Stories
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Villains of Stories
Introduction
Villains are referred to as individuals in stories, plays or movies that display evil actions in the plot of the literary works which are very significant to the literary works plot. These characters are in many instances referred to as antagonists who oppose the main characters referred to as protagonists. This being the case, the villains in question in this instance are those from two short stories, “Voir Dire” and “Doing Time in 13th Chair”. The first story (“Voir Dire”) depicts a state of affairs where a public defender named Hank Low struggles with his legal representation of and individual named Chee Seng Lam, the villain in the story, who was a drug addict doing cocaine and was arraigned for allegedly battering the infant son (Simon) to his girlfriend (Ruby) to death. Hank’s apprehension over the case and his profession as a public defender is aggravated by the pregnancy of his girlfriend (Molly) as he feels he is not doing right by both of them through his profession. Despite overwhelming evidence in support of the villain, he was found guilty and jailed for elven years. On the other hand, the story “Doing Time in 13th Chair,” narrated on the first account by a character who acted as a substitute juror talks of the story of a character Bennie who was being prosecuted in court on the charges of dealing drugs to a police informant occasionally referred to as a 190. The character Bennie in the story portrays the role of Bennie and the whole story revolves around a five-day court case where at the end the villain was found guilty and jailed based on two accounts which meant a prison sentence of over fifty years. On this basis, this paper will discuss how the readers are meant to feel sympathy for villains of stories based on the story of two villains Chee Seng Lam and Bennie in the texts “Voir Dire” and “Doing Time in 13th Chair”.
The character Chee Seng Lam was used to illustrate that readers are meant to feel sympathy for villains of stories. Through the text “Voir Dire,” it is depicted that Lam allegedly whipped a three-year old child to death and had over twenty prior arrests which included aggravated assault, blackmails and theft. All this point to a character that is very evil and is loathed by the society which is the perfect portrayal of a villain. However, despite this, the author of the story spends a big part of the text trying to explain that the villain was under the influence of drugs which made him commit the evil act. This attempt by the author is aimed at making the readers sympathize with the villain an understand his reasons for engaging in this vile act. Since the story is based on a court case, it revolves around individuals coming into
