Loneliest character in a novel ?

[spiltteeth]

Or just a book that deftly deals with themes of loneliness and isolation. The Heart is a lonely hunter comes to mind...

[kelby_lake]

The Stranger
Hamlet?

[Lokasenna]

Robert Neville in I Am Legend - the whole novel is an excellent study in psychology of isolation.

[JBI]

Shylock.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Frankenstein's monster. Also, the narrator (I forget his name) of Notes from the Underground.

[aaron stark]

-Gogol's Dead Souls
-Brontë's Vilette
-Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
-Huysmans' A Rebours
-Shakespeare's King Lear and Hamlet

[dark desire]

Yeah... Meursault in The Outsider (The Stranger). He seemed very close to me though. Does that count? Reading Camus is like feeling - Yes Yes Yes.

[kev67]

Gollum from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

[Charles Darnay]

Most Victor Hugo protagonists: namely Gilliat

[SilvanDitties]

Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis.

[Desolation]

Charles Kinbote in Pale Fire

[Scheherazade]

Frankenstein's monster.Agree with this.

Father and son from The Road.

Almost all the charcters in Heart is a Lonely Hunter but especially Singer.

[Shevek]

Seconding the narrator of Notes from the Underground.

Irene from Passing was lonely, in that eventually she did not fit in with the company of both blacks and whites.

[Lykren]

Myshkin Myshkin Myshkin.

[qimissung]

Lily Bart in The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome.

[Pierre Menard]

Not really a novel but I'll go with Bernardo Soares from The Book of Disquiet.

[Kyriakos]

Not really a novel but I'll go with Bernando Soares from The Book of Disquiet.

:cornut:

[bouquin]

Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing
Guy de Maupassant's Une Vie
Susan Hill's In the Springtime of the Year
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea




____________________
Currently reading: All the Names (José Saramago)

[3D-Potato]

Tess in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'.
In my opinion, at least.

[Quintus Ennius]

Antoine Roquentin from Nausea.

[loe]

Beckett's Molloy.

Knut Hamsun, Hunger (don't remember the name of the main character).

[namenlose]

Beckett's Molloy.

A good answer. Beckett was a master in portarying the loneliness of human condition, both in his drama and his prose. However, I judge his Unnamable to be the most extreme example of loneliness in his entire ouevre. While most of his characters had at least the assurance of being themselves and having some relation to the physical world, in the last novel of his trilogy the protagonist had no consolation to his aporia.

[Pierre Menard]

A good answer. Beckett was a master in portarying the loneliness of human condition, both in his drama and his prose. However, I judge his Unnamable to be the most extreme example of loneliness in his entire ouevre. While most of his characters had at least the assurance of being themselves and having some relation to the physical world, in the last novel of his trilogy the protagonist had no consolation to his aporia.

Yeah, The Unnameable takes it to a whole new level. The lack of physical world, doubting the validity of every word and 'action', the immobility, the claustrophobic feel of the 'setting', etc, it all takes the loneliness/isolation an entire step further.

[loe]

Yes, I agree with The Unnameable.
I guess, I suggested Molloy just because it's my favourite part of the trilogy.

[PabloQ]

My first reaction to the question was Robinson Crusoe (already mentioned).
My second reaction was Pip in Great Expectations, but I can't quite put my finger on why.

[Volya]

The Groke from the Moomins.

[Gregory Samsa]

Yeah... Meursault in The Outsider (The Stranger). He seemed very close to me though. Does that count? Reading Camus is like feeling - Yes Yes Yes.


Yes, he is lonesome, but he also has Raymond and Marie.

My choice is Grenouille from Perfume.

[Clovis]

I got finished re-reading this novel recently. The Clown by Heinrich Böll. SOMEWHAT OF A SPOILER

The main character Schnier is very lonely indeed. He sees himself as perhaps the single living entity with some common-sense and is also always playing the victim. In other words, much of his loneliness and folly he brings on himself, no matter his several very valid points. Still like the central character and the novel, nobody nor novel is perfect...

[neilgee]

I have to agree with bouquin The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

[FenwickS]

Frankenstein's monster. Also, the narrator (I forget his name) of Notes from the Underground.

I'm pretty sure he's nameless, I agree.

I haven't read any of his books but I'm pretty sure that most Paul Auster narrators are of the lonely melancholic type.

[Clovis]

A good answer. Beckett was a master in portarying the loneliness of human condition, both in his drama and his prose. However, I judge his Unnamable to be the most extreme example of loneliness in his entire ouevre. While most of his characters had at least the assurance of being themselves and having some relation to the physical world, in the last novel of his trilogy the protagonist had no consolation to his aporia. Don't forget Malone, confined to a bed.

[manuscript]

Pygmalion

[Gloria_]

I think Hans Schnier from "The clown" is a very lonely character. He stands still, refusing to move on while everyone around him is changing (always for the worse, which is his tragedy). He frantically calls people he used to love and who used to love him on the phone, but no real communication is established. Hans seems unable to relate to the world and this is what makes a human being lonely.