Don Draper

Donald Francis "Don" Draper is the main protagonist from AMC's television series Mad Men. Don was Director of the Creative Department at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, later fouding his own company, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Advertising Agency. Draper is a brilliant but lonely and mysterious advertising man, denying his past and looking only forward. His character is considered one of the most brilliant in television history.
==Character biography==
Draper starts Season 1 as the head of Creative at Sterling Cooper, rises to junior partner, and flees the company to start Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce when Sterling Cooper is sold to McCann Erickson. He has a secret past - he was born as Richard "Dick" Whitman, and assumed his commanding officer's identity when he was killed in action in the Korean War.
== Personality ==
Don tends to be blunt or distant and his chronic infidelity alone makes him intolerable. He can also be quite personable, charming, and fair and often tries to be a decent human being and father, but his character flaws often work against his good intentions. Trying to put his past behind him, Don feels extremely alone. He rarely opens up emotionally, even to his wives or close friends, avoiding bonding with his co-workers. Because of this, Draper feels an inner guilt that has gnawed at him over the years. In response, he wallows in alcohol, work, and particularly womanizing. Don is seen as a compulsive womanizer, and ends up getting sexually involved with most strange women in his life. However, when the relationship starts to evolve into something more, Don usually runs away, as he did years ago in Korea. Because he lives the life of an imposter, Don is unable to balance his personal life and his work life, as he is great at living under a mask while working in the advertising business but cannot do the same with his family. Because of this, Draper ends up pushing away everyone he loves, and feeling worse for it.
However, Don is not necessarily evil. Since he truly feels bad for many of his bad actions, in addition to denying much of the male stereotypes of his time, such as racism, homophobia and sexism. In fact, you could say that Don is way ahead of his time in cultural terms. He sometimes uses the world and the changes of his decade as fuel to convince his clients that the world is changing, and they need to change with it. Don is great at his job for using the introspection of his lonely actions as creative inspiration. However, according to himself, in the end nothing matters since the universe is indifferent and there is no system. There is only the individual and his choices.
Still, it can be said that much of Don's liberalism is fluctuating, not necessarily fixed. Depending on the situation, Draper sees women only as sexual objects for his pleasure or distant lovers. In addition to using many dogmas of his time as ideas to be sold in the advertising business. Don often comes off as a hypocrite, his intentions can be seen as sinical and not necessarily honest.
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