Stamatis Character Analysis

Stamatis is an elderly man in Dr. Iannis's village. He's been deaf in one ear since childhood, which Dr. Iannis cures by extracting a pea out of Stamatis's ear at the beginning of the novel. This makes Stamatis's world significantly less pleasant: he can suddenly hear his wife nagging him and he also becomes aware of his friend Kokolios's unpatriotic communism. He himself is a monarchist. Though he argues all the time with Kokolios and Dr. Iannis at the kapheneia over their political beliefs, the three men band together when Greece becomes a target of World War Two. When the Italians are forced to surrender to the Germans and put up a fight, Stamatis goes to help with Kokolios and Velisarios. He dies in Kokolios's arms when they're marched to a concentration camp during the Greek Civil War, suggesting that Stamatis learned the importance of friendship and finally chose to put it above his political beliefs.