When a main character is killed not only is the audience or the reader affected, but the other characters living in the story do as well. For the reason being that once the main character dies it is now up to the other characters to fill in. Not all characters respond the same to main characters dying, sometimes instead of the generic sadness, there might be a response of happiness or anger. Every character in a story reacts to tragedy in their own unique ways.
For example, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby everyone loved the main character Jay Gatsby. Hundreds of people would come to his mansion and party for days, celebrating absolutely nothing but everyone knew his name. Once Jay died, no one came to his funeral but one Nick Carraway, …show more content…
Shimerda, Antonia's father, is arguably the most tragic character in Cather's story and his life is short-lived on the prairie. But his legacy lives on in his daughter Antonia, her children, and in his influence on Jim Burden. Later, when Mr. Shimerda kills himself it is the depth of winter, and despair is all he sees. His suicide leaves Antonia without a father and a spiritual support, because she was closest to him and she understood him with her heart. Often, Antonia and Jim speak of Mr. Shimerda, and later they meet near his grave. Jim finds a peacefulness there that he cannot find in his adult …show more content…
He tells the reader, "I remembered the account of Dives in torment, and shuddered. But Mr. Shimerda had not been rich and selfish: he had only been so unhappy that he could not live any longer" (Cather 52). The fact that Jim finds beauty in Mr. Shimerda's death is a real insight into his character.
In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, George kills Lennie to spare him from a painful death at the hands of the mob. When the men on the farm find discover that Lennie has killed Curley’s wife, they set out to find him. George knows Curley will not care that Lennie’s actions were unintentional and decides to give Lennie a quick and merciful death to spare him from the suffering he would endure if left to Curley and the other farmhands.
Let us also consider the impacts of a character’s death on the plot of the story. If the deceased had unfinished business, if other characters know things about them that are better left unsaid, or if they took important information to the grave, this must now come into play. Their death may have been used to advance a particular agenda, and may have far-reaching consequences. There is also the question of whether the death happened on the page, or if details have been withheld to add an air of mystery to the surrounding