Best and Worst Characters in Literature

As my final post of the semester, I’m going to cover my favorite liberal arts topic: LITERATURE!!! Hopefully you enjoy my literary list as much as I enjoyed writing it! Who are some of your favorite and least favorite literary characters?

Heroine

Best: Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)

Keira Knightley as Lizzie Bennet in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice

Witty, beautiful, and independent, this Austen heroine defies social customs, unappealing suitors, and a frightening Duchess in her pursuit of happiness (which comes in the form of the handsome Mr. Darcy).

Worst: Lucie Manette (A Tale of Two Cities)

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She’s literally perfect: blonde hair, blue eyes, like the nicest person ever, and so naïve about the nature of the world that it makes me want to throw up. Charles Dickens was definitely a literary genius, but female characters like this are so boring and one dimensional that I want to weep.

Hero:

Best: Beowulf (Beowulf)

Ray-Winstone-in-Beowulf

This fearless and formidable Saxon defines the ideal hero. Not only does he defeat the demon Grendel, but he also slays Grendel’s mother, rules the Geats for sixty years, and then single-handedly kills a DRAGON when he’s like eighty. This epic poem does justice to this great hero of men.

Worst: Dorian Grey (A Picture of Dorian Grey)

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Dear Oscar Wilde,

Stick to writing light and funny satires like The Importance of Being Earnest. It’s better than the story of a dramatic young dandy who struggles to reconcile his actions with his Victorian morals. While the novel itself is good, Dorian Grey is detestable.

Villain:

Best: Iago (Othello)

Iago

OK, let’s get this straight: I LOVE Iago. He’s destructively intelligent, ambitious, and handsome (at least I’ve always imagined he is). With no qualms about the wellbeing of others, Iago proceeds to mentally, physically, and emotional destroy Othello and his companions throughout the course of the famous Shakespeare play.

Worst: Professor Umbridge (Harry Potter series)

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Do I even need to explain this one?

Father:

Best: Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)

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In the eyes of young Scout, the heroine of the novel, her father Atticus can do no wrong, and I am inclined to agree with her. Wise beyond his years, brave, and with a kind heart, Atticus stands up to racism in his Southern town while still being the best of fathers to his two children.

Worst: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

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Basically, after Heathcliff’s childhood love Katherine marries her neighbor Edgar instead of marrying the low-class Heathcliff, the sole purpose of Heathcliff’s life becomes the destruction of everything the Katherine holds dear. He abuses his wife and uses his own son ruthlessly in order to achieve his own wicked and twisted goals.

Mother:

Best: Gertrude Morel (Sons & Lovers)

Sarah Lancashire and Rupert Evans and Gertrude and Paul Morel in a TV adaptation of Sons and Lovers

Mrs. Morel somehow manages to inspire undying devotion in each of her four children while simultaneously running her own household and taking care of her terrible alcoholic husband. She’s selfless, wise, and caring, and the novel is an account of how her children’s lives are improved because of her.

Worst: Addie Bundren (As I Lay Dying)

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Although Addie only narrates one chapter in this narrative novel, in that one chapter she basically says that she hated all of her children except for the one she bore out of wedlock. She also throws in some charming thoughts on how life is pointless and she wanted to kill her husband.

Husband:

Best: Mr. Knightley (Emma)

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Quiet, genteel, wise, and kind, Mr. Knightley is the perfect foil to the novel’s heroine, Emma. He challenges her when she’s wrong, supports her when she’s right, and always listens to her as an equal. (Spoiler: they get married at the end).

Worst: Edward Casaubon (Middlemarch)

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Octogenarian Edward Casaubon spends his days between failing to write a book about mythology and placing super unreasonable constraints on his much younger and much more fabulous wife Dorothea.

Wife:

Best: The Wife of Bath (The Canterbury Tales)

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Technically speaking, the wife of Bath is a terrible wife. She’s unfaithful, impious, and immodest. However, she’s also independent, strong, and hilariously clever (plus, look at that outfit). One of Chaucer’s most enduring characters, she definitely deserves a place among the “Bests” of literature.

Worst: Daisy Buchannan (The Great Gatsby)

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Despite the fact that most of the novel is concerned with her enduring affair with Jay Gatsby, Daisy is also petty, lazy, and aggressively vapid. F. Scott Fitzgerald probably wants us all to hate her. I certainly do.

 

 

6 thoughts on “Best and Worst Characters in Literature

  1. Alayna, I LOVED the Wife of Bath from The Canterbury Tales. She was hilarious. Actually, I found The Canterbury Tales very enjoyable in general. And Atticus Finch is probably one of my greatest personal literary heroes. I also agree (and occasionally disagree) with your other picks as well. This was a fun post. I love seeing other people’s opinions on literary characters.

  2. Hey Alayna,
    I think I’m going to have to disagree about your opinion about Beowulf. While he did do those things that you mentioned, he did them for selfish reasons. He didn’t want to be a ruler for the people, he wanted to be a ruler so that people gave him more power, more wealth, and a reputation to last forever! Beowulf, admittedly, wasn’t my favorite epic to read in high school, but I can appreciate literature in general for its way of making you dig for deeper meaning.

  3. Iago was just so…smooth in everything he did. I appreciate whenever villains have a subtle side to their evil plans. Unfortunately I didn’t know all of the characters you mentioned, but definitely agree with your choices on the ones I do know about. The only qualm I have is Dolores Umbridge; she was an exceptionally villain. I despised her guts; while I really disliked her, which I think was the sentiment J.K. Rowling was trying to achieve.

  4. Tale of Two Cities is a fairly entertaining novel but I will passionately argue that it holds no literary value whatsoever. I really like A Christmas Carol, and I am sure that Charles Dickens is a genius, but Tale exclusively has one dimensional characters, not just female. The plot is romantic-comedy-core, with random coincidences driving every single aspect of the plot.

  5. I agree with a lot of these best/worst characters in literature! I absolutely love Elizabeth Bennet, Iago, and Atticus Fitch, and the roles you ‘cast’ them as were spot on. Additionally, I think some of the worst characters out there are Umbridge (shudder), Heathcliff, and Daisy Buchannan. I haven’t read all of the books whose characters are included on these list, but I am intrigued to read some of these books now! Awesome idea for a post.

  6. I think Professor Umbridge was the perfect villain, because she wasn’t trying to do any sort of grandoise evil like Voldemort, but she represented the annoying small evil people who exist all around us.

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