The stories, "The Kidnapper Bell" by Jim Pascoe and "City of Commerce" by Neal Pollack are both interesting in their own ways. Protagonists in noir, are the leading characters, who could be corrupted or honest but manipulated, pessimistic and greedy. The characteristics of protagonists in noir are actually not that impressive to me. In the first story, the main character or the protagonist is Jim. He is basically not a very good person, I would say. He is a married man (at the end I found it out, which was really shocking!). Even though he has a wife, he looks for other women, dates them and looks for an opportunity to have sex. He tries several girlfriends to get intimated; as the author states his thoughts, "all the while he's doing the male math in his head: four dates and still no sex. Tonight makes five"(pg 207, The Kidnapper Bell). The part of the story, where Jim looks for the kidnapped girl is really scary. It seems, I am in the scene and watching the whole thing with my very own eyes. There are lots of confusing parts of Jim's charater.The most confusing part of Jim's charater is, why he gets hooked up with all those women, while he has a wife at home who trusts him. Another thing that grabbed my attention, that is- why he rings the bell, which is belong to the kidnapper? Does that mean, he is going to turn into one? Obviously this man Jim, does not have any optimistic view towards life. He is also a morally corrupted man.
In the story, "Commerce", by Neal Pollack, the protagonist is a gambler. He does not have any ambition in his life. All he thinks about playing poker, win and make money. Because of his addiction of gambling, he loses a very good opportunity, of stepping forward. The way, the story ends, it seems he does not care about anything in life but gambling, not even his life partner. The author portrayed a perfect picture of a gambler through the character of "Nick", the protagonist of the story "Commerce".
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