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24-662: The House That Berry Built is a 1945 humorous semi-autobiographical novel by the English author Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer), featuring his recurring 'Berry' characters. It is a lightly fictionalised recounting of the construction of the author's house Cockade in the commune of Eaux-Bonnes , Pyrénées-Atlantiques , France. Unable any longer to afford their aristocratic lifestyle in England, Berry and Co decide in 1937 to relinquish White Ladies , their ancestral home in Hampshire , to

48-407: A gulag camp. Leo Tolstoy 's War and Peace depicts fifteen major characters involved in or affected by a war. Though many people equate protagonists with the term hero and possessing heroic qualities, it is not necessary, as even villainous characters can be protagonists. For example Michael Corleone from The Godfather (1972–1990) film series (1978–1983). In some cases, the protagonist

72-422: A hero (masculine) or heroine (feminine) protagonist is typically admired for their achievements and noble qualities. Heroes are lauded for their strength, courage, virtuousness, and honor, and are considered to be the "good guys" of the narrative. Examples include DC Comics' Superman (hero) and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games (heroine). An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine

96-532: A matter-of-fact manner "It was awful, you know, when Piers and my babies were killed. They went down in a plane together." With Boy's ex-wife Adèle having returned to her native America some years earlier, and deciding not to come back, Boy and Jill are free to fall in love; and towards the end of the novel the couple marry. The extended family move in to the completed house but, amid increasing signs of war , it soon becomes clear that they cannot remain. A later book of memoirs, As Berry and I Were Saying , includes

120-423: A poet named Thespis introduced the idea of one actor stepping out and engaging in a dialogue with the chorus. This was the invention of tragedy, and occurred about 536 B.C. Then the poet Aeschylus , in his plays, introduced a second actor, inventing the idea of dialogue between two characters. Sophocles then wrote plays that included a third actor. A description of the protagonist's origin cited that during

144-476: A replacement house, Sacradown , in Umtali , Southern Rhodesia, completed in 1948. According to AJ Smithers in his 1982 biography, The House That Berry Built represents the author at the peak of his form, with Berry never being in better voice. Semi-autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel , also known as a autobiographical fiction , fictional autobiography , or autobiographical fiction novel ,

168-499: A semi-fictionalised account of Berry and Co's attempted return to Gracedieu after the war. It is noted there that after "eight soul-searing months" the family found it impossible to stay on in France. Much of the novel is an accurate account of the building of Cockade , the writer's own residence that he completed in 1939, a little way out of Eaux-Bonnes , south of Pau. It was a substantial six-bedroom property, called Cockade because of

192-545: A substantial property that they name Gracedieu. Although the novel includes a minor sub-plot regarding the family's investigation of a murder, it consists principally of a detailed description of the building of Gracedieu. The cost of the work, the risks of the construction techniques employed, the whims of the mountain weather and the relations with the local contractor are all carefully detailed. In an earlier book, Adèle and Co. (1931), Jill had been married to Piers, Duke of Padua, and had baby twins. Now, she explains in

216-559: A supporting protagonist appears, the story is told from the perspective of a character who appears to be minor. This character may be more peripheral from the events of the story and are not as involved within the "main action" of the plot. The supporting protagonist may be telling the story while viewing another character as the main influence of the plot. One example is Nick in The Great Gatsby . Euripides ' play Hippolytus may be considered to have two protagonists, though one at

240-432: A time. Phaedra is the protagonist of the first half, who dies partway through the play. Her stepson, the titular Hippolytus, assumes the dominant role in the second half of the play. In Henrik Ibsen 's play The Master Builder , the protagonist is the architect Halvard Solness. The young woman, Hilda Wangel, whose actions lead to the death of Solness, is the antagonist. In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet , Romeo

264-586: Is a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage, and morality. Examples include Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye , Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind , Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby , and Walter White from Breaking Bad . A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragedy. Examples include Oedipus from Oedipus Rex and Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet . The protagonist

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288-414: Is a type of novel which uses autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from a typical autobiography or memoir by being a work of fiction presented in the same fashion as a typical non-fiction autobiography by "imitating the conventions of an autobiography." Because an autobiographical novel is partially fiction,

312-488: Is his own antagonist). Sometimes, a work will have a false protagonist , who may seem to be the protagonist, but then may disappear unexpectedly. The character Marion in Alfred Hitchcock 's film Psycho (1960) is an example. A novel may contain a number of narratives, each with its own protagonist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's The First Circle , for example, depicts a variety of characters imprisoned and living in

336-476: Is not always conventionally good. Contrasting the hero protagonist, a villain protagonist is a protagonist who is a villain , driving the story forward regardless of the evil qualities the main character has. These traits can include being cruel, malicious, and wicked. Examples include Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Richard III in the eponymous play by William Shakespeare . When

360-464: Is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist . The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. The term protagonist comes from Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής ( prōtagōnistḗs )  'actor who plays

384-419: Is the protagonist. He is actively in pursuit of his relationship with Juliet, and the audience is invested in that story. Tybalt, as an antagonist, opposes Romeo and attempts to thwart the relationship. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet , Prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge for the murder of his father, is the protagonist. The antagonist is the character who most opposes Hamlet, Claudius (though, in many ways, Hamlet

408-484: The author does not ask the reader to expect the text to fulfill the "autobiographical pact". Names and locations are often changed and events are recreated to make them more dramatic but the story still bears a close resemblance to that of the author's life. While the events of the author's life are recounted, there is no pretense of exact truth. Events may be exaggerated or altered for artistic or thematic purposes. Novels that portray settings and/or situations with which

432-731: The author is familiar are not necessarily autobiographical. Neither are novels that include aspects drawn from the author's life as minor plot details. To be considered an autobiographical novel by most standards, there must be a protagonist modeled after the author and a central plotline that mirrors events in their life. Novels that do not fully meet these requirements or are further distanced from true events are sometimes called semi-autobiographical novels . Many novels about intense, private experiences such as war , family conflict or sex , are written as autobiographical novels. Some works openly refer to themselves as " non-fiction novels ". The definition of such works remains vague. The term

456-552: The chief or first part', combined of πρῶτος ( prôtos , 'first') and ἀγωνιστής ( agōnistḗs , 'actor, competitor'), which stems from ἀγών ( agṓn , 'contest') via ἀγωνίζομαι ( agōnízomai , 'I contend for a prize'). The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece . At first, dramatic performances involved merely dancing and recitation by the chorus. Then in Poetics , Aristotle describes how

480-466: The early period of Greek drama, the protagonist served as the author, the director, and the actor and that these roles were only separated and allocated to different individuals later. There is also a claim that the poet did not assign or create the protagonist as well as other terms for actors such as deuteragonist and tritagonist primarily because he only gave actors their appropriate part. However, these actors were assigned their specific areas at

504-419: The stage with the protagonist always entering from the middle door or that the dwelling of the deuteragonist (second most important character) should be on the right hand, and the tritagonist (third most important character), the left. In Ancient Greece, the protagonist is distinguished from the term "hero", which was used to refer to a human who became a semi-divine being in the narrative. In literary terms,

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528-581: The state for the use of the Foreign Secretary . Nostalgic for a vanished world of social events and elegant idleness, Berry and his friends move to Pau in the South of France where they spend their days picnicking on the slopes of the Ossau Valley . Deciding to settle nearby, they acquire some land on the green mountainside halfway between the thermal spa of Lally and the village of Besse and build themselves

552-509: The way in which it projected from the hill as does a hackle from a hat. As in the novel, Mercer and his wife did not have long to appreciate their new house before they were forced out by the arrival of war . They fled precipitately in 1940 and with some difficulties drove through Franco 's Spain to Portugal , from where they sailed on to South Africa. After the war was over the couple briefly returned, but finding things greatly changed did not linger for long. They eventually built themselves

576-659: Was first widely used in reference to the non-autobiographical In Cold Blood by Truman Capote but has since become associated with a range of works drawing openly from autobiography. The emphasis is on the creation of a work that is essentially true, often in the context of an investigation into values or some other aspect of reality. The books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig and The Tao of Muhammad Ali by Davis Miller open with statements admitting to some fictionalising of events but state they are true "in essence". Protagonist The protagonist

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