Hensch

Outer characterization

Hensch is at the center of the short story “The Knife Thrower” by Steven Millhauser. Hensch is a famous knife thrower who apparently wounded an assistant badly during his early carnival days. After a six-month retirement, he returned to public performance, in which he now includes the idea of the “artful wound, the mark of blood that was the mark of the master” (p. 47, ll. 23-24). He appears in the audience’s imagination as “a monkey of a man in checked pants and a red hat, a stern officer in glistening boots” (p. 47, ll. 40-41). He is physically described as “black-haired and topbald” (p. 47, l. 8), and during his performance, he wears a black tailcoat (p. 48, l. 2).

Before his performance, he appears as a “man with no expression on his face, a man with nothing to do” (p. 48, ll. 25-26), suggesting that his profession is so much a part of him that he has no presence outside of it.

Inner characterization

As we learn about Hensch’s background from the audience, we realize that he probably uses his performance as an excuse to satisfy his desire for violence. This is sugg...