Human vanity is that we think we can overcome our mortality and therefore fail to grasp the bigger picture, that of death's omnipresence. The looming presence of death overshadows the character's actions in both Ismail Kadare's Broken April and Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden. Therefore, it is important to examine how characters in individual works approach the concept of mortality, seeing how it fascinates them and how it shapes their lives. This can be seen in Broken April with the endless cycle of blood that Gjorg only manages to perpetuate, sealing his fate and leaving him to wander the bleak, desolate street. Likewise, Dianna feels the emotional pull of death's menacing power and is transfixed by the doomed hero that Gjorg represents. While Bessian is so in awe of the sublime power of death, that he distances himself from the reality of human death. In contrast, in Death and the Maiden, Paulina attempts to control and manipulate Death for her personal revenge, attempting to reverse the roles of power in her life. At the same time, Gerardo attempts to look at the bigger picture as he tries to heal the scars left on the soul of his country by being the instigator of justice. In both novels, death is the backdrop against which they are set: the endless feuds and crimes of a past dictatorship. The protagonist, Gjorg, has lived his entire life immersed in a world of blood, living as Bessian says "deep in the realm of death" and inevitably comes directly into contact with it as a reluctant assassin - forced by the ancient laws of the Kanun to enter into the ancient tradition of blood feud, and thus begins the end of one's life (Kadare 69). The concept of a life saturated by the inevitable death... in the middle of the paper... of death, to feel the presence of others, those of love and happiness, is rooted in him. However, in Death and the Maiden, the only world Paulina knows is tinged with violence and death, and so everything she can see in her world is limited to the ferocious revenge she can exact. Therefore, with this darkened and intensely focused perspective she ends up dragging everyone around her down a path to death. In this sense it can be seen that in Broken April the characters let death passively shape their lives, preferring to call it fate as it is a natural part of the world and considering it as something strangely beautiful. Yet, in Death and the Maiden Paulina and Gerardo directly interfere in the affairs of death, trying to control it or correct its mistakes. However, they are just as caught up in a world of death as Gjorg, Dianna, and Bessian are.