Oral and Written Communications
October 18, 2011
Miss. Dent Crazy Antagonist or a Woman who stood up
This story was told though Blake’s eyes, she is seen as this crazy woman wanting to shoot him for what he innocently did, she in fact was the protagonist. While Blake's character can best be described as being well put-together on the outside and Womanizing Jerk on the inside. Miss Dent is the exact opposite, it is made relatively clear throughout the story that she is suffering from some sort of mental illness, one that was present before the events of the story. Though it was worsened by Blake’s coming into her life. Despite this, her words and contemptuous tone at the climax of the story makes the reader think that, as she claims, she really may know more about love than our disconnected narrator. Miss Dent was more than a crazy one night stand out for revenge she was a hurt women who knew about love. this knowledge brought her to the breaking-point, the point of almost murder just to clean herself off of the horror that is Mr.Blake. It seems that Miss Dent, in addition to being to story's antagonist, also acts as a foil to Mr. Blake.
There are more subtle clues about their contrasts in the text as well. Blake appears confident, if not cocky, throughout the story, while Miss Dent clearly has low self-esteem and openly longs for Blake's life. These characteristics are shown when Mr. Blake offers Miss. Dent a drink and she replies, “If you really want a drink. I have some whiskey at my place.” Also although it is not readily apparent, there is a contrast between Blake's obsession on appearance and Miss Dent's claw like handwriting. Like when he thinks to himself that, “Her writing gave him the feeling that she had been the victim of some inner-some emotional-conflict that had broken the continuity of the lines on her paper. The fact that Miss Dent acts as a foil to Blake accelerates the plot of the story and gives a level of deeper meaning to its climax....