Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Leonard

This one's easy. Leonard not only narrates a large chunk of the story, but we basically follow Leonard around the whole time. We hear him tell us about Sammy as if we are the mysterious person on the other end of the phone. All of Leonard's experiences are our experiences.

Nolan's rationale for creating an inverse narrative structure was to give the viewers the same experience as his protagonist. We never know how we got to where we are when a scene starts because we are traveling backwards through time, and Leonard doesn't know because of his condition.