Since Bunker Hill Character Analysis

Antagonist

Definition: An antagonist is a character or a group of characters which stand in opposition to the protagonist or the main character.

Example: In Bunker Hill, Philbrick’s protagonist is Colonial Boston, who is eager for freedom and independence due to unfair treatments conducted by the British. Undeniably, it is an understatement that the antagonist of the novel is the British military forces, who are deemed to be “evil” side when it comes to the words of American patriots. In the novel, Philbrick further examines the underlying catalyst of the Battle of Bunker Hill through perspectives of various people from two sides of the story avoiding generalization and presenting the reality.

Characterization

Definition: The term characterization

“Hancock was not as thickheaded as Samuel Adams...Being a businessman, Hancock possessed a practical sense of the human resources required to get a job properly done. Adams was more of a theorist, a man who always had his eye on the bigger picture and who never seems to have allowed the paltry concern of individuals interfere with his pursuit of American liberty” (Philbrick 130). In the short passage above, however, Philbrick developed a direct and instant characterization of the two of the most famous colonists during the American Revolution by bluntly stating the different characteristics possesed by both men.

Exposition

Definition: A literary device used to introduce background information about events, settings, characters etc. to the audience or readers.

Example: “More than five thousand ppeople waited inside the Old South Meetinghouse, the largest gathering place in Boston. On that evening in the middle of December 1773, they were impatient to hear what Governor Thomas Hutchinson had to say about the three ships bearing East India tea currently tied up to Griffin’s Wharf” (Philbrick 3). These two sentences are the starting lines of the book introducing the exposition of the novel by clearly stating the setting and character at the location of the novel hinting

A protagonist is sometimes called a “hero” by the audience or readers.

Example: Bunker Hill was famously known as the battle the patriots lost yet aspired numerous colonists to join the patriots for a war towards their own independence. The novel Bunker Hill presents Boston as the ture hero of the book, which is where the battle took place. Colonial Boston is known for its uprising and rebllion against the British and of its bravery and ambition.

Point of View

Definition: The perspective or angle “from which a narrative is told.” Point of view usually takes the form of first-person or third-person, but is very rarely addressed through second-person.

Example: Bunker Hill is told from the perspective of the book’s author, Nathaniel Philbrick, and is considered as a third-person perspective. Readers can instantly recognize this fact through the omission of the pronoun ‘I’ and the constant transitions between different events and people.

Rising Action

Definition: A series of relevant incidents that create suspense, interest and tension in a narrative. In literary works, a rising action includes all decisions, characters’ flaws and background circumstances that together create turns and twists leading to a climax. Rising action is one of the elements of plot, begins immediately after its