Analysis Of Richard Mayhew From Neverwhere - 708 Words

â€Å"You Learn to Recognize the Type: An Essay on Richard Mayhew from Neverwhere† The protagonist of Gaiman’s novel is hardly hero material. When you think of heroes, you think of Odysseus or Robin Hood: extraordinary men who conquer all opposition and achieve their goals. Richard Mayhew isn’t extraordinary in the slightest. Actually, he’s pathetic. His position in his relationship with his fiancà ©e, Jessica, is laughable. At the beginning of Neverwhere, he has no ambition and only one redeeming quality: he’s kind. His one redeeming quality is what gets him into trouble in the first place. When he helps Door, he unknowingly enters a world far more dangerous and surreal than he can even begin to comprehend. When he helps her, he does it in an†¦show more content†¦No friend may aid him. Before this, when the three of them are in the company of the mysterious Lady Serpentine, she refers to Richard as Door’s â€Å"hero.† When Door denies this, Serpentine firmly disagrees with her. â€Å"I’m afraid he is,† she says. â€Å"You learn to recognize the type.† Due to her age and experience, Serpentine can see something in Richard that is hidden to us, an inner resolve of sorts. The Ordeal is a torturous affair that has one goal: to defend the key by driving contenders to commit suicide. Richard is led to believe that he’s insane and beyond useless—that no one could ever accept him. This has worked on all previous contenders, and it nearly works on Richard, too—except he is saved by a triggered memory of the dead Anaesthesia. Throughout the novel he asked after the fate of the girl, for it bothered him due to his good heart. Here he is reminded of her sacrifice, and he chooses to live. There are other challenges Richard and the others face in the rest of the tale: some trivial (such as heights) and some very significant (such as killing the Beast). None, however, are on the same level as the Ordeal. The Ordeal changes who he is as a person and how he views life. When he returns to his London, he finds that he’s no longer satisfied with life there and tries to find a way back. His pleas are answered in the form of de Carabas taking him back to the world of London Below. Throughout the novel, Richard is an ordinary man, but heShow MoreRelatedNeverwhere: Book Analysis1304 Words   |  6 PagesVillarosa, Katrina Ysabel P. ENGLISH IV BOOK ANALYSIS NEVERWHERE â€Å"Fall into the shadows, discover a world unknown, Journey through London bellow, be Neverwhere.† Introduction: A psychoanalytical approach to a world behind a world, invisible to the naked eye, existing because of magic, danger and fantasy, Neverwhere. The psychoanalytical theory can be used as a way to explain the change of heart of Richard Mayhew when he had been introduced to the underground world he thoughtRead MoreWeird Fiction Is An Appropriate Course For College Students Essay2090 Words   |  9 Pagesperspective of the world. A few stories we have read in class that best exemplify the positive effects of weird literature include, â€Å"The Damned Thing† by Ambrose Bierce, and â€Å"The Willows† by Algernon Blackwood. According to an excerpt from the book The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics by Jane Bennett, Bennett describes enchantment as being â€Å"struck and shaken by the extraordinary that lives amid the everyday† (4). This quote describes being surprised by something