Three Cups of Tea

Three Cups of Tea 

Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin 

The protagonist in Three Cups of Tea, a non-fiction novel by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, is the main character and hero, Greg Mortenson.  Greg Mortenson is a nurse and mountaineer. By his vocation, Greg is compassionate and empathetic. He is driven by desire to help people. However, Greg was not looking to become a humanitarian. His career of a humanitarian starts accidentally, when the climbing journey goes wrong. Greg sets of on a climbing journey for personal reasons. His intention was to climb K2 in the honour of his deceased sister and place his sister’s necklace on the summit. The trip goes wrong and he finds himself in the care of the village of Korphe. He encounters the poverty and harsh living conditions in the rural areas. These challenges make him think about priorities in life.  His humanitarian spirit develops as he discovers how people in the village live, how children are forced to educate themselves by writing in the mud with sticks, as there are no schools. He becomes more empathetic and his sympathy and compassion for the inhabitants lead him to pursue humanitarian work, and to build schools in the Pakistan Villages.  He becomes committed to the new goal and that is to improve the social and economic conditions of people in rural areas and provide free and more liberal education. His persistence and determination help him continue when he is overcome with financial and personal difficulties.

There may be two antagonists:

1.     Society that fails to meet the needs of the people

2.     Greg himself

The antagonist is the society that fails to meet the needs of the people. This is the society where majority of people are extremely poor, with no possibility to gain education and economic freedom, a society ruled by religion and militant forces. There is no liberal education and no choice or options for young people. He realizes complexities of a society in Pakistan. Such society has influence on Greg. He is driven to fight injustice, he rushes to help the people, personally and financially. However, he does not realize that the impact of his personal efforts is limited and that for a more substantial changes to occur, comprehensive reforms should be put in place.

Greg can also be seen as antagonist. Greg is driven by his emotions.  Throughout his journey he acts on impulse. He acts before he thinks. He fails to consider the impact of his actions.  His eagerness to act without thinking or planning is a benefit and an obstacle. For instance, going to the village was not Greg’s choice. The failure to reach the summit of K2 leads him to the village of Korphe.  Once in the village, he realizes that building a school would be a better homage to his sister than placing her necklace at the top of the mountain. However, he doesn’t stop to think how difficult it will be to construct a school in the mountains of Pakistan and how much financial and human resources will be needed. On the other hand, if he had thought about it, he could have given up the project altogether, realizing the difficulties of the project. Throughout the journey he faces numerous dangers and uncertainties, he gets caught by the Talibans etc.

Having that in mind we can consider Greg as antagonist as well as a protagonist, since he commits himself without planning, he is not in control and he exposes his life to danger.  However, he becomes mature in this process and learns the importance of communication and building relationships with others rather than rushing ahead on his own. 

The conflict is man vs. self and man vs society.