The Mystique of the Anti-Hero.
To anyone who has seen the 1983 classic gangster film Scarface, he was a very dark character, but as anti-hero we willed him on to win his battles with other gangsters. Even at the end when he was surrounded by armed men and he comes out of his office with a large assault rifle, we still wanted him to survive, despite the fact that he was evil. Mario Puzo’s Godfather was another example of a set of anti-hero’s without an ounce of decency or normality. And yet we want them to be the most violent and come out on top in their wars with rivals. The Talented Mr Ripley was also a dark character filed with jealousy and unable to relate to people; to fit in to the point that he kills his good friend rather than be expelled from the group of friends he’d got used to. What is it about anti-hero’s which sees us rooting for a character we would not want around us in real life? We invest in characters when we read novels. We invest time and energy into following their lives and end longing to