Neverwhere And The Nightingale: A Literary Analysis

In every story, a hero can be found. Some stories have superheroes who go on epic adventures, save the day, and make it to their happy ending. Other stories begin with untroubled people living bucolic lives, but are made heroes through the hardships they have faced and survived. Of course, no one is simply born a hero. Every knight in shining armor has a backstory, a childhood, which lead to them taking on the responsibility of slaying the dragon. And, within the backstories are the characters that are seen as the ones who set the heroes on their journeys down yellow brick roads and through galaxies. Both the courageous and those who created the courageous have their places in the stories, Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, and The Nightingale, by

They both endured tribulations they never expected to, and were made all the stronger for it. Door was forced to run and hide from Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, the monstrosities that had mercilessly murdered her family. Isabelle had essentially lost both of her parents at the young age of three, leaving her to fend for herself . The two young women had no choice but to adapt to these alterations in their lives. As a result, they transformed into independent women capable of defending themselves against the evils of their worlds. Because of how determined she was to find who wanted her family dead, Door was a force to be reckoned with. Richard, looking at Door, remarked, “there was something more ancient and powerful in those huge opal-colored eyes in their pale heart-shaped face than her young years would have seemed to allow” (Gaiman 166). Her soul had been infused with doggedness, and she made her presence and purpose known to those whom she addressed. This power within Door that was fully awakened by her loss is what constructed the hero she became. Per contra, Isabelle emerged as a tenacious rebel who wanted to give her life meaning, and wanted to belong somewhere. And when she first met Gaët, he invited her to join him in fighting the Germans. The narrator explains how, at that moment, Isabelle thought “He made it sound like such an adventure, no