Rear Window

Jeff's Character

how is jeff a sympathetic and likeable character?

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As a character, Jeff is sympathetic because his worst trait (at this point in his life) is that he watches others in order to escape from his own problems. It is hard not to feel sorry for him, but that doesn't mean we aren't appalled by his constant surveillance of others, which is creepy at best.

Over the course of the film, we also see that Jeff's propensity for "watching" other people is all about watching them, rather than helping them. Jeff's interest in the Thorwalds has very little do with his concern for Mrs. Thorwald; similar to his job, he is simply documenting something horrible but not taking any action to solve the problem. In Jeff's arguments with Doyle, he is more focused on being right about the Thorwalds than about the wellbeing of innocents.

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Rear Window

as we watch the film, it is insanely hard for viewers to ignore the ways in which Jeffrey displays a sense of being troubled and perhaps being driven away from the things that he truly wants due to his morals and beliefs that bind him and keep him away from persuing the love of his life, the lovely and glamarous Lisa. ultimately, we unintentionally become the "race of peeping toms" that Stella grudgingly chastises, and are forced to sympathise with Jeffrey because he is all we see at times throughout the play, and the other persepectives that we receive from contrasting characters eventually align with jeffries suspicion of a dirty crime happening right under the noses of his neighbourhood.