It is possible to have a protagonist in a story who never
appears in person but whose motivation and influence is are felt throughout. A good example of
this, with which Hemingway must have been familiar, is to be found in Henry James's greatest
novel, The Ambassadors (1903). Mrs. Newsome, the rich and domineering mother
of Chad Newsome, is the protagonist although she remains in America while everything take place
in Europe. It is she who sends the middle-aged hero Lambert Strether to Paris to find her son
Chad and persuade him to come home to take his place managing the family manufacturing business.
It is Mrs. Newsome's strong motivation that drives the story. When Strether does not seem to be
making much progress with Chad, who is having an affair with a married woman, Mrs. Newsome sends
two more "ambassadors" to France, her stiff, prudish daughter and her daughter's husband. Since
there should be an antagonist as well as a protagonist, it is clear that the antagonist is the
cultured, sophisticated Mme. de Vionnet, Chad's mistress. The two women on two different
continents are fighting over possession of the handsome playboy Chad
Newsomee.
In the case of Hemingway's "The Killers," the protagonist
is an unnamed "friend" who is paying the two hit men to kill Ole Andreson. The friend has been
hunting Ole for quite a while, judging from what Ole tells Nick when Nick comes to the rooming
house to warn him. So the antagonist in this story can be none other than Ole Andreson himself.
The hit men would not be there if the friend was not paying them, and Ole would not be on the lam
if he hadn't done something pretty serious to antagonize that friend. George, Nick, Sam, Max, Al.
and Mrs. Bell are all just little people who happen to get involved in a battle between the
protagonist and antagonist.
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