Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

John Ames's Father

We considered naming John Ames himself as the guide or mentor—after all, he's writing to his son in large part to give him a good sense of direction in life. However, as we named John Ames the protagonist, we'll look here to the person who most influenced Ames's way of seeing the world. That would be his father, also named John Ames. His father brought him up to be a preacher, and it's from him that Ames has taken much of his theology, not the least his dislike of violence and war.