Lo all,
Just being thinking about this and wondered what your take on it was.
Which characters in literature do you most identify or emphasise with?
I'm not asking which character you would most like to be, or which character you feel best represents you. Just interested in which character, for what ever reason, you feel a strong connection to.
For me it would have to be Richard from Alex Garland's The Beach and Yossarian from Joseph Heller's Catch 22.
Richard because he fits the role of the post-modern Everyman and has a human side too. his account is contradictory, slightly self-centred but ultimately honest. I wouldn't necessarily say he is a nice person, he has flaws like the rest of us but his mistakes throughout the book are always a result of trying to keep other people happy or being slightly naive. I think the first person narrative of the Beach helps the reader to emphasise with him but considering what a crazy he is he doesn't necessarily make the easiest narrator to get on with. The final thing that helps is my interest in Vietnam War films.
Yossarian from Catch 22 is my second choice. Like Richard he's a bit crazy but I think he is the least crazy out of a whole cast who are completely off their collective rocker. His insistence to stay alive in a time when an individuals life was pretty insignificant really personifies every soldier in time of war and his arguments justifying why he should stay alive are pretty hard to ignore.
The whole logic behind Catch 22 (and the catch itself) is projected through Yossarian.
Over to you.
Panzer
Just being thinking about this and wondered what your take on it was.
Which characters in literature do you most identify or emphasise with?
I'm not asking which character you would most like to be, or which character you feel best represents you. Just interested in which character, for what ever reason, you feel a strong connection to.
For me it would have to be Richard from Alex Garland's The Beach and Yossarian from Joseph Heller's Catch 22.
Richard because he fits the role of the post-modern Everyman and has a human side too. his account is contradictory, slightly self-centred but ultimately honest. I wouldn't necessarily say he is a nice person, he has flaws like the rest of us but his mistakes throughout the book are always a result of trying to keep other people happy or being slightly naive. I think the first person narrative of the Beach helps the reader to emphasise with him but considering what a crazy he is he doesn't necessarily make the easiest narrator to get on with. The final thing that helps is my interest in Vietnam War films.
Yossarian from Catch 22 is my second choice. Like Richard he's a bit crazy but I think he is the least crazy out of a whole cast who are completely off their collective rocker. His insistence to stay alive in a time when an individuals life was pretty insignificant really personifies every soldier in time of war and his arguments justifying why he should stay alive are pretty hard to ignore.
The whole logic behind Catch 22 (and the catch itself) is projected through Yossarian.
Over to you.
Panzer
