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Thread: religious characters in Literature

  1. #1
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Lightbulb religious characters in Literature

    the first one that springs to mind from
    Pride and Prejudice
    the cousin of Elizabeth Bennett. Mr Collins not the most religious but the most applied one.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    Voice of Chaos & Anarchy
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    It depends on what you mean by "religious". General King Dick in Lydia Bailey is religious in a way. The first main character in literature, Gilgamesh, was quite religious, andthe tradition of having religious main characters has been common.

    Don't forget Miss Lonelyhearts.

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    Tidings of Literature Whosis's Avatar
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    Casey Jones from The Grapes of Wrath--religious. Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--not as religious.

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    Flannery O'Connor must have written some of the best religious characters in every sense of the word. I nominate Hazel Motes from Wise Blood and Francis Tarwater from The Violent Bear It Away.

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    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Whosis View Post
    Casey Jones from The Grapes of Wrath--religious. Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--not as religious.
    I did not know there two Caseys. it is irritable when the same name carries over in another story.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  6. #6
    Internal nebulae TheFifthElement's Avatar
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    John Ames from Gilead. One of the most beautiful books ever written.
    Want to know what I think about books? Check out https://biisbooks.wordpress.com/

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    Goldmund in Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund; the old man Zosima in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I haven't read these books recently, but the pictures of these two characters from them have ramined in my memory as someones very wise and tender at the same time. They seem to me like embodyment of a pure religiosity.
    ...........
    “All" human beings "by nature desire to know.” ― Aristotle
    “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

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    Card-carrying Medievalist Lokasenna's Avatar
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    As a mythologist, most of the characters in the things I read are gods... not that you'd want to worship any of them.
    "I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche

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    There's often a vicar in Victorian novels, usually the upper middle class twit who is too thick for academia, and too cowardly for the army. He's often "a looker", and because he has money, a respected job, and surface charm, he is often set up as the main opposition to the hero in pursuit of the heroine. The vicar in "Under the Greenwood Tree" by Thomas Hardy is a typical example - a modernising, meddling, fool who's more interested in chasing skirt than leading his flock. For instance, he tries to replace the string players in church by an organist (i.e., the heroine) thereby showing he's tone deaf, ignorant of tradition, stomps on parishioners, and is sex obsessed. This really gets us rooting for the hero!

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    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by free View Post
    Goldmund in Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund; the old man Zosima in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I haven't read these books recently, but the pictures of these two characters from them have ramined in my memory as someones very wise and tender at the same time. They seem to me like embodyment of a pure religiosity.
    I find the names alone rather fascinating.
    in what way have they ramined?
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mal4mac View Post
    There's often a vicar in Victorian novels, usually the upper middle class twit who is too thick for academia, and too cowardly for the army. He's often "a looker", and because he has money, a respected job, and surface charm, he is often set up as the main opposition to the hero in pursuit of the heroine. The vicar in "Under the Greenwood Tree" by Thomas Hardy is a typical example - a modernising, meddling, fool who's more interested in chasing skirt than leading his flock. For instance, he tries to replace the string players in church by an organist (i.e., the heroine) thereby showing he's tone deaf, ignorant of tradition, stomps on parishioners, and is sex obsessed. This really gets us rooting for the hero!
    a vicar under a dress is anything but godly. you would imagine abstinence has an effect and is long wining to the most unthinkable places.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    Registered User kev67's Avatar
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    The Tibetan lama in Kim is very religious. Henry James commended Rudyard Kipling on his credibility.
    According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
    Charles Dickens, by George Orwell

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    TobeFrank Paulclem's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Whosis View Post
    Casey Jones from The Grapes of Wrath--religious. Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--not as religious.
    there's also Casey Jones the train driver. he didn't seem that religious either when he was steamin' and a rollin'.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig3GcDBjQN4

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    Registered User Poetaster's Avatar
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    Would Dante be a candidate?
    'So - this is where we stand. Win all, lose all,
    we have come to this: the crisis of our lives'

  15. #15
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poetaster View Post
    Would Dante be a candidate?
    absolutely and the best one by far. it is like reading the bible only in reverse.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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