Antagonist

"I swung at him and he ducked. I saw his face duck sideways in the light. He hit me and I sat down on the pavement. As I started to get on my feet he hit me twice. I went down backward under a table. I tried to get up and felt I did not have any legs. I felt I must get on my feet an try and hit him, Mike helped me up. Some one poured a carafe of water on my head. Mike had an arm around me, and I found I was sitting on a char. Mike was pulling at my ears." (p. 195)

At this point in the novel, I feel pretty secure in naming Cohn as the antagonist, It isn't that Jake and he aren't friends at the end of the novel, I just feel that once he attacks Jake, Cohn crosses the line. From this point on, he is no longer completely a friend. He becomes not only the enemy, but also competition for Brett's love. Even though Jake knows that Brett feels nothing but annoyance with Cohn, clearly Jake would still feel some competition. Secondly, after the attack, even though Jake and Cohn make-up, hard feelings still remain. This places Cohn in the antagonistic position of this novel. He may not be the same degree of enemy as, for example, Harry Potter and Voldemort, but he verges on enemy. Thus, he is at least partial the antagonist. If not for his actions, many of the negative events never would have occurred in the novel.