Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

The Big Guys, The Doctor, The Day Nurse

Joe doesn't exactly have any overt enemies, but one way of characterizing Joe's struggle is to think about who he ends up blaming. We're calling them the big guys, in contrast to the little guys Joe loves to talk about.

What do the big guys do? They wage war, and make little guys like Joe go fight it. And then little guys like Joe end up pretty badly. There are a lot of different ways to begin to attach a face to the big guys: they could be the political establishment, the military establishment, or the capitalist establishment. In short, the big guys are the guys who have a lot of money and never get their hands dirty.

The doctor comes to stand for something like a spokesperson for the military. He doesn't seem to care about Joe as a person; he just wants to shut him up by pumping him full of morphine. When Joe finally succeeds at relaying his pent-up message, the doctor responds with cold bureaucracy. Essentially, the doctor is the one person standing between Joe's message and the world.

The day nurse isn't an antagonist in the traditional sense (it's not like she's trying to deliberately harm him), but she does become a major obstacle in Joe's desire to communicate with the outside world, simply because she can't understand him.