which literary character are you? NOT a quiz or a meme; I'm curious

[chelseagirl]

At a talk I was at recently, the speaker mentioned that when readers are asked what characters from literature they identify with, women overwhelming choose one particular character, whereas men choose many different ones.

So: which character from a book do you most identify with? It can be literature, sf, f, mystery, etc.

Second, if you restrict yourself to literary classics, does that answer change, and who do you identify with now?

Finally, who in books would you like to have as a BFF? This is someone who doesn't remind you of yourself, necessarily, but who you would like to know.

In my next post I'll say who the women picked overwhelmingly (and her one runner-up). (Assuming anyone is interested enough to respond to this -- I might be being a boring academic geek over here . . . )

My answers:

1) Dorothea Brooke from Middlemarch by George Eliot, because her sometimes extremely misguided attempts to achieve a meaningful life remind me of myself. Only I think I have a much better sense of humor than she does.

2) Same.

3) Harriet Vane, from the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, by Dorothy Sayers. She cares much less about what people think of her than I do, but I would love to have her as a friend.

Hmmm. Mine are both from books written by women. Fancy that. ;-)

Comments

OK...

[gillyp.livejournal.com]

which character from a book do you most identify with?
Sydney Carton.

Second, if you restrict yourself to literary classics, does that answer change, and who do you identify with now?
I'm pretty sure AToTC is a classic so I don't suppose my answer's changed.

Finally, who in books would you like to have as a BFF? This is someone who doesn't remind you of yourself, necessarily, but who you would like to know.
Psmith. Nothing like me, but life would never be dull

Re: OK...

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to be too prescriptive, but then I thought if everyone was a Hermione or something, I couldn't check it against her conclusion . . .

So far my f-list is far more diverse and interesting than her sample.

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, before I even read down to your answers, I was thinking Dorothea Brooke! Damn. For the same reasons.

Also the main character from A Line of Beauty (though a gay man) had some reminiscent qualities in that he always wanted better for himself, and once he got comfortable, someone would betray him, but it was for the best in the end.

I'd like to be BFFs with Harry Potter and his pals. Naturally.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Hmm, our synchronicity once again. ;-)

I can't remember his name; yeah. He kind of reminded me of Charles Ryder a little, too.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I suspect that, like every Lieutenant in Napoleon's army having a marshal's baton in his knapsack, the women surveyed all thought they were Elizabeth Bennet.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

You're supposed to play, not guess. Spoilsport!

(And I can't answer bc I don't want to influence other people's answers, but what do you think the odds are . . . )

[executrix.livejournal.com]

5-1 Lizzie
2-1 Jane Eyre

Because, after all, Ms. Bennet-Darcy not only ended up with a husband with all his bits attached, but 10,000 a year (and, presumably, an entire wing of her own).

I really *don't* identify with characters, but oddly for BFF I'd pick Mary Crawford (in some moods) and Dinah Morris (from Adam Bede) in others, although they're quite dissimilar.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Still not answering til later. Lalalala.

Well, Mary and Dinah would definitely cover all sides of things between them . . .

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

I'm realizing that the characters I identify with are often characters I wish I was more like, or wish I had in my life, rather than characters I am actually like.

I want to give this more thought and come back. It's a very interesting question.

[(Anonymous)]

That's ok. Whatever makes you identify with them . . .

I'll look forward to your answer!

[(Anonymous)]

Er, that was me. Replying from gmail is apparently more than my brain can handle this evening.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

*sigh* No. Me. Really.

[mortalwombat731.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that the most-chosen is Jane Eyre, and I cannot be interesting enough not to say that I have often identified with Miz Jane myself. Spunky outcast and so forth. More though, now, I like to think I'm Gervase Fen, from Edmund Crspin's detective novels: professor of English, entertaining and eccentric, and oh yes, solver of crimes. If I ever needed to, I'm sure that I too could solve crimes.

BFF is kind of harder. Probably someone from one of my juvenile novels of old: Betsy Ray, since she *was* a grown-up by the end of the series, or of course, Anne Shirley, but she got kind of boring and kid-centric once she got older.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Is Gervase Fen male? Extra points for cross-gender identification! ;-) Next time I have a crime that needs solving, I will be certain to put you to the test.

[tv-elf.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be Pippin from LotR. Yes, wrong gender. But I adore how he goes at life.

I don't trust anyone enough to call them BFF.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Although I've found a surprising number of women tended to feminize Merry because of his name. I posted about this a number of years ago and discovered that besides me and my law school roommate, 2-3, maybe 4 women on my f-list had done the same.

FWIW, I think we now have more people choosing male characters than female. You have officially tipped the balance, congrats! ;-)

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

1) Petrova Fossil from Ballet Shoes. Studying books on aeroplane engines at her dance classes - it was piano for me but, oh God, I was her as a kid, all uncoordinated awkwardness and liking the wrong things. As an adult, Miss Pettigrew from Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day.

2) This is an odd one, but Dr Watson. I once saw someone on a Doctor Who Forum claim that the companions are all interchangeable because "nobody ever read Sherlock Holmes because they loved Watson best" - I did, dammit.

3) Thursday Next, because she loves books and has adventures.

I bet everyone said either Elizabeth Bennet or Jo March.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

I don't actually think Watson is odd at all.

So maybe I'm odd too?

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

Ballet Shoes!!!! I loved Petrova!!!

[galacticowl.livejournal.com]

What a great subject! :) I'd be a few people. One is Jo March, I've wanted to be her since I was a kid. Another is the Indian girl in Island of the Blue Dolphins. A woman whose name is never identified in a historical novel called We Speak No Treason, about Richard III. She is known at various times as the Maiden and the Nun.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for playing!

So far Jo has been chosen three times, but for three different reasons (identification, BFF, and guess at most popular character) . . . still, that makes her most-mentioned.

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is quite difficult, as I usually tend to identify more with the male characters of the books I read, rather than the females.

Anyway, after giving it a bit of thought, I believe the character I mostly identify with is Emma (but it used to be Robinson Crusoe when I was a child - yes, I was a lonely person).

My ideal BFF would be Jo March, a very talented and creative person. I tend to be a bit dull myself, so I like to be surrendered by interesting people, hoping they'll share a bit of their awesomeness with me.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

A lot of people picked male characters, I think about half of the respondents so far.

Did you restrict yourself to English-language characters because most of the respondents are English-speaking, or are there not characters you feel as strongly about in Italian literature?

Speaking of which, we started reading Inferno in class again yesterday. We switched last year to an edition with a facing-page translation (Italian on the left side, Robert Pinsky's English translation on the right side), and this year I have a student who's reasonably fluent in Italian so I'm looking forward to getting some insight from him.

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

Well, now that I think about it, I did restrict myself to English-language characters, but only because I prefer English and American literature to the Italian one. I would have chosen a foreign character anyway.

I'm glad to know you like Dante so much. I never read The Divine Comedy in English, hope the translation is good. The original text is written in ancient Italian, which is so complex that it hardly bears any resemblance to the modern language. Italian students find it so difficult to understand that an annotated edition of the book is always used in schools, explaining most of the text.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I would love to be Harriet Vane, and yet I am not. But I'd love to have her as a friend.

I'm drawing a blank on the rest; it's been ages since i've regularly imagined myself into heroes or heroines, and so the question kinda throws me.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I've never "imagined myself into" Dorothea, but I very much empathize with her situation and goals in life and find them similar to my own. Which might be exactly why I'd never daydream about being her -- no vicarious pleasures there. ;-)

Better?

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

So: which character from a book do you most identify with? It can be
literature, sf, f, mystery, etc.
Pretty much any bookish heroine, from Anne of Green Gables to Talia in the Valdemar books, to Thursday Next. And Bilbo Baggins.

Second, if you restrict yourself to literary classics, does that
answer change, and who do you identify with now?
Urgh...Classics...Jane Eyre, I think. Small, plain, smart. Although if we
go for classic plays as well, then Kate The Shrew from "Taming of..." or
Beatrice from "Much Ado." Again, smart, although those two have way more spark and wit. Lysistrata! Bilbo again, if you consider LotR to be a
literary classic.

Finally, who in books would you like to have as a BFF? This is someone
who doesn't remind you of yourself, necessarily, but who you would like
to know.
Dorothy Gale. Thursday Next. Talia. Vanyel. Anne Shirley. Merry and Pippin. Probably lots more, that I can't think of at the moment.

Re: Better?

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :-))))

[studiesinlight.livejournal.com]

I wanted to answer this earlier this week, but I kept having too little time. I hope I wouldn't have swayed your results! :-)

For my entire childhood, I would have answered with Alcott's Jo March and Montgomery's Anne Shirley. Which one I identified with, and which one I would have liked for a best friend, would have varied through the years, but it would always have been those two -- in canon lit. Over in Marvel Comics, it would have been Illyana Rasputin (Magik) and Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat).

As an adult, I've identified less personally, less totally, with characters. I'm sure that's due to many factors -- and, yes, I still identify with FK's Nick Knight rather an awful lot ;-) -- but I feel more often like Austen's Anne Elliot, and unfortunately I identify with the mistake and waste and paralysis, not the happy ending. ~shrug~ I did have a brief, intense fling with identifying with Luna Lovegood in HP.

I've never been an Elizabeth Bennett, as were many of the other people, apparently -- in fact, I'm much more a Meg March or Jane Bennett or Mary Ingalls! The boring but infuriating older sister who tries to do everything right and follow the rules all the time. (Of those characters, it's interesting that only Meg ever got her own voice, even for a chapter.)

[valancy-s.livejournal.com]

I'm late to this post but might as well toss in my two cents...

1) Emily Starr from L.M. Montgomery's Emily books - I used to think we were pretty much the same person, and I still identify a lot with her stubbornness and writerly ambitions.

2) Maybe Anne Elliot from Persuasion? I'm more talkative than she is but I empathize very strongly with her when I read the book.

3) So hard to choose! Perhaps Jane Eyre. Or I'd like to belong to one of those fun, eternally loyal units of friends you get in books, like the LOTR Hobbits or the Potter trio.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Glad to get your response!

Poor Anne. Hopefully you will assert yourself more than she does.

I wonder if that's one of the things that's so appealling about 19th c. novels -- it's so easy for us to surpass our favorite heroines. Hmmm.

[valancy-s.livejournal.com]

Well, now that I'm the age of Anne at the beginning of the book, I like to think I'd align more with her decisive, finally-going-for-what-she-wants stage! Interesting point you make, about liking the heroines we can surpass... I think that's true in some ways, though many of them have attributes like uncompromising determination or sterling honesty that I can only weakly sit and admire.

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

Hi. I don't know you, and you don't know me, but valancy_s sent me this way because she said there was Bond-and-M flailing to be had. True?

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Have been flailing, for sure! Have been flailing behind an f-lock but will be happy to unlock my flailing and share . . . though I am swamped and it may be a few days (end of semester crunch, visiting in-laws, and holiday concert all going on at once, eee).

Glad someone else shares my obsession. Everyone keeps sending to me to this one amazing story which has kind of intimidated me re. writing it. But would love to flail with you soon!

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

Would love to flail with you whenever you're in the mood. And you're writing it! And there's an amazing story! Linkage? *Bambi eyes*

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Hey! Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. Hope you are still flailing for Bond and M!

I have just unlocked entries for 11/7, 11/12, and 12/02, in which I flail about Bond and M. I need to relock 11/7 sooner or later (it has references to my job in it too) -- I teach and I have this silly fear my students will find my journal and realize what a geek I am (I'm sure they could guess it, but . . . ) -- but anyway, fwiw. Am now off to your journal to find your flailage. Again, sorry for the delay -- the end of the semester just wiped me out this time!

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

No worries. This time of year gets busy for everyone.

Thanks for taking the time to unlock these entries! I enjoyed reading them, and you can relock them whenever you feel the need. :)

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

One more thing:

The only decent story I've found is this one (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4650840/1/) on FF.net, but I quite liked it.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! Three people on my flist sent me to the same story (http://intimations.org/fanfic/jamesbond/Queen%20of%20Spades.html) which is so good I've been intimidated to get started with mine! So nice to see there's something else worth reading out there . . .

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

Also, that was amazing. Thank you so much for the link! The moment when M first turned on the "I seduced every world leader EVER" power, I about fell out of my chair it was so awesome. :)

I can see why you're intimidated, but I also like your idea and think it's a great way to go at these two.

Let me know if you need more encouragement. I'm happy to oblige.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Pretty awesome, yes? My friend msb66 was going to take me up on my challenge and write one too and she is feeling similarly "how can I hold a candle to that?"-ish.

However, once I get home from this conference I'm at, and rewatch Casino Royale a few times, I should very much like to take you up on that!