Contrast

Contrast

Contrast: to compare different things or arrange them in a way that highlights their differences.

I usually dislike the use of definitions in a story, probably related to my dislike of facts interfering with a good tale. However, I’ve been wondering about contrast and what it accomplishes. Those in the medical profession use a dye to emphasize the differences in pictures of internal organs. Thus contrasting the differences and the resulting picture produces a clearer showing of the items that have absorbed the dye or contrast. [Side Note #1: I know you’re asking if I’m going to be working on a medical story. The answer is, “no.”]  I’ve been wondering about how writers use contrast to describe characters in their stories.

If the author can contrast the characters in the stories they will appear clearer, and easier to define. Show the differences between the hero and the villain and you have a better picture of each. If the reader cannot see those difference clearly then the two blur and are not easily perceived. The hero might be evil, or the villain might have a good side. Is it better to have a clear distinction between the two, or can a story flow well with the reader feeling sympathy for the villain, and distrust of the hero?

My favorite author, Ms. Rowling, does a little of both in her story of the boy wizard and his nemesis, the evil one who cannot be named. [Side Note #2: If you haven’t read the stories this makes no sense. I mean how can you have a character who no one calls by their name? I always wondered how the younger children were to know who to fear, if their parents never said the name of the one they were to wary of. Oh well, it worked since it allowed the truly brave ones to actually say the name. Now that’s courage for you.] Ms. Rowling even goes so far as letting a part of the evil one live in the hero. At various times during the story she has the hero wondering about the similarities between himself and the villain. This of course sets the stage for the hero’s mentor to strongly point out the differences between the two. And it becomes the differences, or the contrasts, between the two that help the reader to define the hero.

In the early western’ movies the bad guy always wore the black hat. That way it was easy to spot him in the crowd. The hero was the one with the dirty white hat. Of course this was to lead to great confusion when later we had the “Zoro” movies come out and there was the hero dressed completely in black. You couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, no contrast.

Contrast exists between characters who are not the hero or the villain. Contrast can help to define any and all of the characters in a story. In “Moby Dick” we have Captain Ahab and the great white whale “Moby Dick.” But who can forget Ishmael and by contrast his friend the tattooed Queequeg. Their differences define who they are, and what part they are to play in the story.  Melville also uses comparisons to show the similarities between Ahab and Moby Dick. Is Ahab the good one who is trying to save whaling ships from the evil white whale? Is Moby Dick the evil whale who seeks out and destroys those ships, and the humans who sail them? Or, is Ahab an obsessed man who lives only for revenge, and the whale only defending himself against those who would kill him and his kind? Both contrast and comparison work to answer those questions.