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A protagonist is the main character (the central or main figure) of a drama
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
 or story
Narrative

A narrative or story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or Non-fiction events. It derives from the Latin language verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled"....
. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 p??ta????st?? (protagonistes), "one who plays the first part, chief actor." In the theatre of Ancient Greece
Theatre of Ancient Greece

The theatre of ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a Theatre culture that flourished in Classical Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BCE....
, three actors played all of the main dramatic roles in a tragedy
Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
; the leading role was played by the protagonist, while the other roles were played by deuteragonist
Deuteragonist

In literature, the deuteragonist is the second most important character, after the protagonist and before the tritagonist....
 and the tritagonist
Tritagonist

In literature, the tritagonist is the third most important character, after the protagonist and deuteragonist....
.

The terms protagonist, main character and hero are variously (and rarely well) defined and, depending on the source, may denote different concepts.






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A protagonist is the main character (the central or main figure) of a drama
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
 or story
Narrative

A narrative or story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or Non-fiction events. It derives from the Latin language verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled"....
. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 p??ta????st?? (protagonistes), "one who plays the first part, chief actor." In the theatre of Ancient Greece
Theatre of Ancient Greece

The theatre of ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a Theatre culture that flourished in Classical Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BCE....
, three actors played all of the main dramatic roles in a tragedy
Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
; the leading role was played by the protagonist, while the other roles were played by deuteragonist
Deuteragonist

In literature, the deuteragonist is the second most important character, after the protagonist and before the tritagonist....
 and the tritagonist
Tritagonist

In literature, the tritagonist is the third most important character, after the protagonist and deuteragonist....
.

The terms protagonist, main character and hero are variously (and rarely well) defined and, depending on the source, may denote different concepts. In fiction, the story of the protagonist may be told from the perspective of a different character (who may also, but not necessarily, be the narrator
Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the entity that tells the story to the audience. The narrator --or, the archaic female equivalent, narratress-- is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind....
). An example would be a narrator who relates the fate of several protangonists, perhaps as prominent figures recalled in a biographical perspective.

The principal opponent of the protagonist is a character known as the antagonist
Antagonist

An antagonist is a character or group of characters, or, always an institution of a happening who represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend....
, who represents or creates obstacles that the protagonist(s) must overcome. As with protagonists, there may be more than one antagonist in a story.

Sometimes, a work will offer a particular character as the protagonist, only to dispose of that character unexpectedly, as a dramatic device. Such a character is called a false protagonist
False protagonist

In fiction, a false protagonist is a technique for making a scene more jarring or a character more memorable by fooling the audience's preconceptions regarding who the story is really about....
. Marion in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, Order of the British Empire was a British filmmaker and film producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres....
's Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)

Psycho is an Cinema of the United States Thriller /thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, from the screenplay by Joseph Stefano. It is based on the Psycho by Robert Bloch, which was in turn inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein....
 (1960) is a famous example.

When the work contains subplot
Subplot

A subplot, sometimes referred to as a "B story" or a "C story" and so on, is a secondary Plot strand that is auxiliary to the main plot.Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance....
s, these may have different protagonists from the main plot. In some novels, the protagonists may be impossible to identify, because multiple plots in the novel do not permit clear identification of one as the main plot, such as in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle
The First Circle

The First Circle is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released in 1968.The novel details the life of the occupants of a gulag prison camp located in the Moscow suburbs, the Marfino sharashka....
, depicting a variety of characters imprisoned and living in a gulag
Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. Gulag is the Russian acronym for The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the NKVD....
 camp, or in Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist and Education reform made him the most influential member of the aristocracy Tolstoy....
's War and Peace
War and Peace

War and Peace is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russkiy Vestnik , which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era....
, depicting 15 major characters involved or affected by a war.

In psychodrama
Psychodrama

'Psychodrama' is a form of human development which explores, through dramatic action, the problems, issues, concerns, dreams and highest aspirations of people, groups, systems and organizations....
, the "protagonist" is the person (group member, patient or client) who decides to enact some significant aspect of his life, experiences or relationships on stage with the help of the psychodrama director
Psychodrama director

A psychodrama director is the leader of a psychodrama session who by his/her actions is aimed to help the protagonist enact significant scenes from his life and experiences in a meaningful and therapeutically beneficial way....
 and other group members, taking supplementary roles as auxiliary egos.

See also

  • Antagonist
    Antagonist

    An antagonist is a character or group of characters, or, always an institution of a happening who represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend....