Desire and attraction are what give the characters in the novels we have read their individuality, it is what sets them apart from others. Whether it's their naivety, their beauty, or their innocence, the characters are the center of attention because of the traits they possess. Karl Rossman, Billy Budd, and Mrs. Ramsay are characters who possess certain qualities that make them the center of attention, but the qualities that attract desire and attraction are also their biggest flaws, leading to their downfall; these characters are foiled by their own characteristics. Karl Rossman is a naive young man who comes to America because he was forced to. We see from the start that Karl has a passive aura that attracts people to him. We have an example of his passivity in the first paragraph of the novel, "Karl Rossman, a seventeen-year-old boy who had been sent to America by his poor parents because a servant girl had seduced him and had a child of him…” (p. 3). We see that Karl allowed himself to be seduced by a girl, which is a passive trait opposed to a dominant trait, if he was dominant he would never have let himself get into this kind of trouble. We can also see his passivity because he let his parents send him away; there is no language to suggest he fought. He let his parents treat him unfairly without saying anything. I came to the conclusion that it was his passive nature that attracted the servant to him, she knew she would be able to seduce him. His passive attraction led to his downfall by being sent to America with little money and few possessions. His passivity attracts people, but his characteristic of confidence also attracts him. At the beginning of the novel, Karl forgets his umbrella in the middle of a paper... the external beauty that first attracts people. For Karl Rossman, it's its newness in America that first attracts people. What can be said about the three characters is that it is their internal characteristics that attract people to their attention. Although attraction should be a good trait to have, it becomes the flagship of that character; they all end with a negative reaction. We can learn that attraction and desire are not as great as they seem, they can have negative ends. Works cited: Kafka, Franz and Mark Harman. Amerika: The Missing Person: a new translation, based on the restored text. New York: Schocken, 2008. Print. Melville, Herman and Warner Berthoff. “Billy Budd, sailor.” Great Short Works of Herman Melville. New York: Perennial, 2004. 429-505. Print.Woolf, Virginia and Mark Hussey. At the Lighthouse. Orlando: Harcourt, 2005. Print.