Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

The Captain-Narrator

The captain opens the story by telling us about how lonely he is while sailing in the South Pacific. We feel sympathy for him right away, but that's not enough on it's own to make him the book's protagonist. We also need him to be responsible for most of the book's action, which becomes the case once he makes the decision to hide a murderer named Leggatt from the people who are looking for him. From that point on, the conflict centers on how the captain is going to get Leggatt to freedom, and by this point, he has established himself as our main man. He earned it.