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Michael Clayton Character Analysis: Karen Crowder
The job of Karen Crowder at U North was broad and had a wide reach wide. U North’s web of deception was masterfully kept by her. Her job at U North was a lot more than just what she explained in an interview at the beginning of Michael Clayton.
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The job of Karen Crowder at U North was broad and had a wide reach wide. U North’s web of deception was masterfully kept by her. Her job at U North was a lot more than just what she explained in an interview at the beginning of Michael Clayton. She handled the whole face of U North, and she handled everything that looked like it could possibly pose a problem to U North. In the film Michael Clayton, she shows her role in the drama, she shows her Purpose, and she shows her motivation. The only thing she does not clearly show is who she is protecting. This does make the film Michel Clayton more intriguing. So let’s explore Karen Crowder the master schemer behind U North.
The role of Karen Crowder in the drama Michael Clayton is the antagonist. Her role is to make as much tension between the good and evil side as possible. She can kind of be considered a semi-instigator, although the main instigator in this film is Arthur Edens. There are a couple of things that she does that make Michael Clayton look deeper into why certain things that are happening. The first thing she does is she has Arthur Edens killed, the second thing she does is she has the people watching Michael Clayton call the police, while he is in Arthur’s loft. The last thing she does is she has the same people try to kill Michael. The last thing is what really put the nail in the coffin. It seemed that before that Michael might have just been quiet about Arthur’s findings. The down fall of U North can be attributed to her bad judgment.
The Purpose of Karen Crowder is twofold. There is her purpose for the film. Then there’s her purpose in the film. Her purpose for the film is being the inciting force. She starts off the action of the film, and is also the climax. Her purpose in the film is to Protect U North. So she is to U North what a membrane is to a cell. She allows certain things to come out, and gets rid of other things that can become detrimental to U North. She was the go to person for U North. Her purpose was to make the company look good no matter what.
Karen’s motivation like who she is protecting is a little sketchy. Her motivation is one of two things. The first would be she, wanting to be good at her job and not wanting to get fired. Self motivation points out her more selfish motivation. The second motivation would be, not wanting to disappoint Don Jefferies, the U North Chairman. There seemed to be some relationship between the two of them when they were together. It was most likely just that she kind of looked up to him, a father daughter type of relationship. One of these two was her motivation which leads to the next topic, who is Karen Crowder protecting?
As stated earlier there is no completely clear answer as to who Karen Crowder is protecting. There are there possible benefactors of Karen protection: one is U North, two is herself, and third Don Jefferies. An example of her protection being for U North was when she has some men follow Arthur and then has them kill him because “it” the information he had on them can’t get out. Along these same lines an example of her protecting Don Jefferies, the men asked if they should notify Don. She tells them “No! Don is busy.” Again here it shows that there is some relationship between her and Don. Finally an example of her protecting herself would be at the end of the movie when Michael is blackmailing her for money. She seems to really be evaluating what to do, even more so when Don Jefferies comes out to get her. It seems in the film Michael Clayton that these are all being protected by Karen Crowder.
Karen Crowder’s character in Michael Clayton was the most dynamic character in the film. She had many sides to her personality. The way this was role portrayed by Tilda Swanson added more to the character. Her role was the role of the antagonist, which played very well into her purpose in the film as the catalyst for the inciting force. The motivation of the character Karen Crowder was mostly a selfish motivation, but also a motivation by others like Jefferies. Karen was protecting three different things but she was only serving one thing, U North. Karen Crowder in a way was the string the held Michael Clayton together. Karen Crowder connected all the events in the movie to one another and the characters.
