Heroes To Villians

Many times in literature there are the hero and the good guy figures. But in some novels, the good guy or hero may not be as great as they may seem. Sometimes they are the villain but you wouldn’t know that from their point of view. They believe that they are doing the right things, but from another’s they are criminals. I know of two examples of this scenario, the first is Fahrenheit 451. In it firemen are portrayed as the good guys by ridding society of books which are known as primitive pieces of information. The other example is John Hammond from Jurassic Park. For most of the book you see him as a good guy but later when things start going bad you really get to know him.

At the beginning of Fahrenheit 451 you know Guy as a firefighter doing the service of ridding society of books that are known as obsolete. You think he is doing the right thing until he starts thinking about what he’s doing. That is the point when you realize that he isn’t doing anyone a favor but being a plain out murderer. He finally realizes that when a woman refuses to leave her forsaken house and is soon engulfed in fiery oblivion. After this event he decides that he wants to go against what he did and bring books back.

In Jurassic Park you are introduced to John Hammond, an eccentric entrepreneur. He is shown as a man who loves everybody and wouldn’t want anything to happen to anybody. He is just a man with a mission to open an amusement park featuring living dinosaurs. But when things go wrong, dinosaurs escape, and people die he turns to a nasty, greedy, self-consumed jerk who cares about nothing but money and his own well-being. We see an example of this when he thinks about  opening a new park but with less chance of failure -- because he doesn’t care about any fatalities from the current park.

There is a big connection between both stories,;they both portrayed the characters as good guys in the beginning but as you get to know more and more you realize that they are actually evil-doers. However, there is also a big difference between the two and that is the fact that Guy attempts to undo what he has done while Hammond stays the same old stingy guy that he has always been deep down.

Things have a way of connecting though not intentionally, especially in literature.  These are pretty similar in the way they introduce the characters but as the books progress  they become different in the way the characters experiences the events. Despite these similarities and differences no matter what, they are both great novels.