In the story “Two Fishermen,” a lone reporter for a newspaper named Michael Foster, has great intentions of capturing a large story. Foster shows great ambition throughout the story as he says to Smitty ‘Do you know this Thomas Delaney that’s dying in the morning?”, (Caliaghan 3) This shows that Foster puts his job before people due to that Foster has just met Smitty, and he is asking questions about his report,rather than asking about himself. Foster shows throughout the story that he is quick to judge such as when he met smitty and said ” the man smiled. He had a large head, tapering down to a small chin, a birdlike neck, and a very wistful smile. Puckering his mouth up”, (Caliaghan 2) he instantly made him sound like a dirty guy making him believe Smitty was bad, also right after Smitty asked Foster if he was going fishing and if he could share a boat with him, but Foster almost instantly said no thanks. So it is clear that Foster is a judgemental person. Foster shows that after all the friendliness Smitty gave and did for Foster, and after he made the realization that smitty is not a bad guy he still made the decision to join the town, rather than help Smitty. ” he looked around wildly, looking for someone to help him as the crowd kept pelting him. Farther and farther Michael backed into the crowd and all the time he felt dreadfully ashamed as though he were betraying Smitty”, (Caliaghan 7) Foster shows in this quote that he knows he is betraying smitty and he feels bad for it but he still backs out. Foster, throughout everything is shown to be a very ambitious person but also judgemental and caring but not willing to act upon it.
-Tristan Romani