English Club Chatter

Eddie Dean, from The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I wish I could explain why, but it's complicated and personal. I guess the easiest way to answer why is that he reminds me a lot of myself in both character strengths and flaws.

I would have to say Ester Greenwood from Plath's The Bell Jar. Or that is how I would like to be; brillant and troubled and a little crazy. Crazy is good. It breeds creativity.

Sarah, creativity triggered by craziness can be a pleasure for the reader/viewer; however, for the creator, or "crazy," everything is hell, including his/her art. As Robert Lowell put it, "I myself am hell."

Dabble in the dark at your own risk

Also (after thinking about it some more) Jake Barnes (from The Sun Also Rises), the war veteran turned journalist (writer) who likes to get good and tight once in a while and has an unspeakable injury that makes it difficult for him to interact with women.

Okay, great idea. Off the top of my head, I'm going to go with Lear's fool. But I may have to reread Feste. I don't drink enough for Falstaff. But then there's always Anne Shirley.

I have to say that in real life, I seea great deal of Poe's character Dupin in myself. Everything is a puzzle to unravel, but I can also relate to the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno character cross from the original incredible Hulk series. Mild mannered writer, turns green monster!!!

I would have to say that sometimes I am a motivated Nancy Drew sluething for someman to incriminate. Except i dont drive a little blue sports car, and my father isnt a detective--he worked on little blue sport cars.

However, I am facinated with Dorthea Brooks in MiddleMarch. Although I dont know if i would fancy Mr. Causabaum as much as Sir James.

Also--Mansfield Park, Jane Austin--Fanny.

Why dont you just shake all three of those up...I best stop now, i love fiction.

Maybe I'm just insecure, but I find myself identifying with almost anyone I'm currently reading. More generally, I guess I have trouble finding any character who is exactly "me". There are some I'd LIKE to be, but probably am not (Gabriel Oak in "Far from the Madding Crowd," Edward Ferrars in "Sense and Sensibility," Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- Galileo? Casanova? Hercules?), and then others I would rather NOT be, but probably have more in common with than I'd like (oh I don't know -- bits of Hamlet, Lear, Pip in "Great Expectations," almost anyone in an Arthur Miller play, Stephen Dedalus in Joyce's "Ulysses"). Can I identify with a poet? or an author? (in a way, authors are characters for us). I'd pick Hardy, Shakespeare, Donne, Philip Larkin -- but I'm not sure I'm up to them any more than Hercules.

The more I think of this, the more characters from works of fiction remind me of myself. That said.... Judas Iscariot.

I sure do know how to kill a thread again

or yourself.

Or your yellow self!