Character Story, Essay Example

Character Description: The Vulgar King (early 40s)

Physical: He is showing the signs of a hedonistic lifestyle in the form of a prominent beer belly. His hair is long and greying, with an equally long and grey beard. He resembles a corrupted ascetic, a holy man who has gone on the wrong path.

Psychological: The Vulgar King has retreated into drink and gluttony. He is in a sense fed up with this world, with his kingdom. He is accordingly lacking any courtesy, rude and demeaning others. He uses his authority as a king without any empathy for others. There is a deep reason for this, however: something that torments him from the past.

Sociological: He is a descendent of the royal lineage, the firstborn son of the previous king. However, his ascent to the throne was not without tension: he dealth with conspiraces against his becoming king in his early 20s. The power struggle caused him to murder many of those close to him, for example, family members, as well as the “holy man” of the kingdom, who the Vulgar King also suspected was part of the plot to prevent his ascension to the throne.

Hidden/Contrasting facet of character:

The gluttonous alcoholic behavior of the king appears to represent a superficial ruler, concerned only with his own immediate well-being. This state, however, is a response, an attempt to escape from the memories of the times of turbulence, where he killed those closest to him in order to secure power. Behind the hedonism is therefore an ultimately ethical ruler, fully conscious of his actions and what he has done. This leads him to question his own position of authority. His “vulgarity” is in this sense a protest against himself, a protest against his own actions in the past.

Character Flaw

The king’s murderous past, as well as his self-destructive vulgar and alcoholic behavior, makes him appear to be a “loose cannon”, ready to use his political power in manners that are potentially deadly to those closest to him.

Situation

The Vulgar King, some twenty years after the murder of those closest to him to avert the conspiracy against him claiming the throne, is in a drunken and devastated state. He has tried to forget the past, yet is visited by a young ascetic who reminds him of the holy man who he killed twenty years ago as part of the conspiracy. The holy man comes to the king to make a request of him for the donation of alms, and the plot centers around their philosophical dialogue.

Key Actions to Express Character:

At the beginning of the scenario, the Vulgar King is extremely intoxicated. He states vulgarities to one of the women of the royal court. The rest of the court shows dismay at the continued self-destructive deterioration of the king.

The Vulgar King dismisses those around him, and begins to talk with himself in a maddened monologue. At this point, the sophistication of the monologue destroys our initial conceptions of the Vulgar King as a brute hedonist. His reflections on the trivialities of court life leads into his self-interrogation as to what it means to be ruler. This leads him to recollect the pass, and we are therefore introduced to the story that has made him King. These are the beliefs in conspiracy and the answers to these conspiracies that caused him to murder.

The Vulgar King rides on horseback to a location outside of the palace that is commonly known to have religious and sacred significance. He goes to this location without accompaniment except for one of his close servants, a half-blind and foolish peasant that he knows from his youth. Here, the King displays a regret over his past actions.

The Vulgar King, however, after visiting this religious site returns not to his palace, but to the town adjacent to it. Disguised in peasant clothes and a cloak, without any visible signs of his royalty, the Vulgar King enters a tavern with his servant and begins to act as a debauched drunk, insulting the barmaids and the patrons of the location. He is then badly physical beaten by one of the locals at the tavern, who does not know he is the king. The king’s reaction, however, is merely to leave, without any punishment for the man.

The King returns to the palace in a devastated state. He is told that he has a visitor: a holy man from a distant part of the kingdom. The Vulgar King invites the holy man in. The holy man tells the King of problems in his part of the kingdom, which he needs to rectify. The holy man bears a resemblance to the younger version of the holy man the Vulgar King killed years ago, and this creates in him a paranoia concerning conspiracy and supernatural dangers.

The philosophical dialogue between the Holy Man and the Vulgar King confirms all the tensions of the narrative. The King’s reaction to the holy man is at times violent, at times passive. Here, questions of power and ethics come to the forefront. The Holy Man is disgusted with the King, and ultimately encourages the King to kill himself before departing. The Vulgar King then kills the holy man himself.

The Vulgar King is asleep in his bed the next day. Using tropes from magical realism, a horde of wild boars enter his chambers. He swats at them with his sword attempting to kill them. His trusted servant enters the room to see what is the matter, and the King in his panic, kills his servant by mistake. The King emotionally breaks down and weeps.