Most wretched character in all of literature ?

[spiltteeth]

Pretty much no one can beat Kafka's creations, especially good ol' Gregor. Also poor Humbert from Lolita is awfully tortured....Who else ?

[stlukesguild]

Wretched... Lear?

[Lykren]

By the end of the play, I think Macbeth might be even more wretched than Lear.

Ukifune? Sort of?

Anna Karenina?

Lin Daiyu?

[sandy14]

Gollum

Branca d'Oria - in the deepest pit of traitors' hell [The Divine Comedy]

Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it [Dr Faustus]

[chrisvia]

Satan?

[Lykren]

Forgot to mention Milton's Satan.

[kev67]

Midnight Cowboy was a book before it was a movie. Ratzo was pretty wretched.

[luhsun]

If the definition of wretched is miserable,deserving pity, i disagree with the choice of milton's satan, macbeth or king lear. Overweening ambitions of the former two or the dotard's wish to be best-loved, just like xiang yu's heroic failed struggle to overcome the 'mountain' of fate- i pity not them. When younger, i sometimes dreamed of fighting the good fight just like them, but i, of course, would be brash enough to think that i would be wiser and not make their fatal mistakes. To be able to evoke such ambition that the reader could do better than these flawed heroes- they cannot ever be wretched.
Gregory in Metamorphosis does not evoke pity, at least not in me. More of nihilism.. the suffering of a speck of dust floating in the vastness of space, getting blown to nothingness and life goes on as usual.
Wretched indeed is boxer of animal farm. Trusting, struggling to do his best and betrayed and sent to the glue factory.

[WICKES]

Hardy's novels are full of wretched characters: Tess, Jude etc. I often feel the poet Philip Larkin, whose life and art are almost inextricable, was a wretched character.

[Lokasenna]

It depends, I suppose, on how you define 'wretched'. Perhaps Javert would be a contender?

[JBI]

Wretched... Lear?

My first thoughts, then Medea. Though the Greek's were good with the horrible sufferers.

[Lykren]

Greeks? Oh yes! Prometheus! Sisyphus!

[luhsun]

Oedipus, if we talk of wretched greeks- who tried to avoid killing his father and marrying his mother, and unwittingly done both. Medea i have to disagree.. she willingly betrayed her family and got what was coming to her.. not wretched, but, excuse the cultural salad, karma.

[luhsun]

Prometheus was not wretched. He defied zeus. Even zeus' son - hercules went against his father to help prometheus by fending off the eagle. Sweet revenge and moral victory- man still has fire and zeus's son betrayed papa.

[luhsun]

Sisyphus was also karma, and not wretched nor deserving of pity. He was the king of deceit, cheating the gods, death and persephone. It was only by superior firepower that zeus got the better than him. I dont know how western culture see him, but those familiar with taoism would see him as equivalent to sun wu kong, thumbing his nose at the gods. He lost, and was condemned, but by george, it was well worth it, pulling the tails of the gods.

[mal4mac]

What about the nice characters in Dickens who don't end well? Smike in Nicholas Nickleby, Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop, the 'child bride' in David Copperfield,...

[Snowqueen]

I was about to say Bazarov but I think that doesn’t really count because he was nihilist.
How about Heathcliff and Henchard?

[hannah_arendt]

I would say that Heathcliff fascinates a lot of people, mostly women.

[Oedipus]

Kullervo from the Kalevala, who I also mentioned in the 'memorable' characters thread.

[sandy14]

Mr. Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, perhaps?

[ladderandbucket]

Dostoyevsky's Underground Man

Dickens' Miss Havisham

[luhsun]

I would have voted for pip if dicken didnt change the ending of great expectations. Devoid of talent nor humility, wanting estella, ignoringvwemmick, despising joe, not appreciating biddy and useless in saving magwitch.. pip was wretched, until dicken spoilt the ending with the cloying no shadow of another parting stuff.

[JBI]

Are we defining wretched here in the sense of pitiful and in a morose state, or are we defining it as vile or deplorable. Pitiful, or evil?

The word carries both meanings, so we could say someone like Macbeth would be wretched in the second sense, whereas Lear in the first.

[mal4mac]

If we are going for vile or deplorable, I think there are worse cases than Miss Havisham in Dickens, e.g., the Murdles & Uriah Heep in David Copperfield, Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist, Bradley Headstone in Our Mutual Friend.

What about Bob Slocum in "Something Happened" by Joseph Heller?

[Lykren]

Don't you think Macbeth is pitiable too, though?

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

How about Count Dracula, Claude Frollo, Goldfinger.

[MANICHAEAN]

"Who's bad?" Michael Jackson asked. "These are:

Helen Grayle/Velma Valento from “Farewell, My Lovely”, by Raymond Chandler.
Described as "a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window", Helen Grayle is the most memorable of Raymond Chandler's femmes fatales. She leaves a trail of bloody victims in her wake as she tries to hide her past as flame-haired nightclub singer Velma Valento.

Moriarty from “The Final Problem”, by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The "Napoleon of Crime", motionless "like a spider at the centre of his web", until his fall in Switzerland.

Tom Ripley from “The Talented Mr Ripley”, by Patricia Highsmith
So much more clever and, when he wants to be, more charming than rich Dickie Greenleaf who he bumps off and whose identity he assumes. Thinks he will be much better at being rich, too, and goes on to prove it.

Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
Hard to find much to say in favour of Bill Sikes; robber: child abuser, murderer of a poor-but-good-hearted prostitute, beater of dogs, resident of Bethnal Green. Not much going for him.

Alec d'Urberville from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
As if Alec d'Urberville's ruination of Tess weren't evil enough he gets born again!

[sandy14]

I often feel the poet Philip Larkin, whose life and art are almost inextricable, was a wretched character.


Don't believe the hype. Larkin had at least four lovers - some simultaneously and had a life that was not half as horrible as he puts out in his poems. Larkin knew what he wanted and in many respects got exactly what he wanted.

The published Letters to Monica are well worth a read. However, it is worth remembering that Larkin was a librarian first, and a poet second, and his life as a librarian is barely mentioned in any of his work.

I think I'm trying to say that Larkin had reasons to be cheerful - and the pessimism in his writing is a bit of an exaggeration 9and at times borrowed from Hardy).

[luhsun]

Wretched can be used to show anger or annoyance- she disliked the wretched man intensely (as the example given in dictionaries). I do not think it translated directly as evil. I would hold on to the miserable/pitiful definition.

[luhsun]

How can i pity macbeth? He was ambitious and superstitious. If he had succeeded, he would be no more reviled than any other blood-thirsty kings. Lady macbeth was slightly pitiable, her reputation sullied and used by her husband to kill duncan. Not written by shakespeare but i think she went mad because her husband's liaison with the three witches was also not purely fortune telling but may be of a vile romantic kind.

[*Classic*Charm*]

Are we defining wretched here in the sense of pitiful and in a morose state, or are we defining it as vile or deplorable. Pitiful, or evil?

The word carries both meanings, so we could say someone like Macbeth would be wretched in the second sense, whereas Lear in the first.

I think Anna Karenina fits both definitions...

[Calidore]

Merriam-Webster's definition of "wretched":

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wretched

I don't see evil as such anywhere in the definition, examples, or synonyms. As luhsun said, miserable and pitiful seem to be more in order. Maybe someone more like Scrooge, who was trapped in and as much a victim of his own meanness as everyone else was.

[JBI]

Wretched can be used to show anger or annoyance- she disliked the wretched man intensely (as the example given in dictionaries). I do not think it translated directly as evil. I would hold on to the miserable/pitiful definition.

I didn't mean evil as in good and bad, but in the sense of like how a Leviathan can be called a "wretched beast". The usage there is to mean corrupt, wrong, deplorable, etc. Miss Havisham fits that description rightly. Someone like a James bond villain does not exactly, as they lack that sort of cold, bitter vileness.

[mal4mac]

I didn't mean evil as in good and bad, but in the sense of like how a Leviathan can be called a "wretched beast". The usage there is to mean corrupt, wrong, deplorable, etc. Miss Havisham fits that description rightly. Someone like a James bond villain does not exactly, as they lack that sort of cold, bitter vileness.

Yes a bond villain, or mafia "Goodfellow", could not be described as wretched. To be properly wretched, I think the subject has to be corrupt, wrong, and deplorable in the immediate, unreflective, apprehension of the beholder. In David Copperfield there are two major villains - Steerforth and Uriah Heep. Steerforth is a really nasty piece of work but cannot be described as wretched; Heep certainly can.

So who is the most wretched beast-human? Not Miss Havisham surely, she has a certain self sufficiency and a nice house, at least until the end (!) Caliban maybe? He's spent all his life in a state of degradation, a state of continuous wretchedness, courtesy of Prospero (Why do we admire him so? Is he the most subtle Bond villain?) But Caliban, to some extent, deserves his wretched state for trying to rape Miranda. The one I feel most pity for is Smike in Nicholas Nickleby. He's been tortured by an evil schoolmaster for all of his short life, until he's more corrupt than Caliban, but has done nothing wrong. (Notice I'm using corrupt here to mean "decomposed", rather than "dishonest".)

[luhsun]

Which leviathan are you referring to? Hobbes' figurative amoral brute that is real human nature? Or the whale that swallowed jonah? How can these be wretched?

[luhsun]

Don't you think caliban was prospero's id? And staying alone on a deserted island with the only female that happened to be also his daughter, prospero would be conflicted by the id versus incest taboo. The defence would be projection externally to caliban- that caliban tried to rape miranda and the adult prospero stopped caliban. In this story, j'accuse prospero to be the most wretched. He dlved into magic like a spoilt addicted child, neglected his duties, got deposed, tried to seek revenge in so histrionic and narcissistic manner. The happy ending is so contrived, and prospero was so schizophrenic that the return to his land must be marked by an act of renunciation of throwing his magic book into the sea. Without magic, how could he ensure the king and his brother would keep their promise. That childish action is indeed most wretched.

[JBI]

I am reffering to the biblical demon-like form referenced by Job, in the Psalms, and Isaiah, which comes from the Hebrew Levitan.

[JBI]

"I am sorry for thee. Thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch
Uncapable of pity, void and empty
From any dram of mercy."

Of Shylock.

[luhsun]

You mean the fish god killed and served at banquet at heaven. A bit unkind of god to kill the female so they do not over-reproduce, but not wretched. Went through the biblical texts you mentioned, but the story is skimpy. There is no pathos or any rich details to colour the picture of wretchedness. Maybe the hebrew literature you are privy to weaved a richer tapestry than the english translation of old testament

[luhsun]

Yes, agreed shylock was a wretch. If he had any backbone, he would have sunk the knife deep in antonio, come what may. I always had a nasty suspicion that the good duke was in shylock's pocket.. the duke allowed the pound of flesh charade, and when the state held shylock's life/fortune as forfeit, he allowed shylock off with just a fine.

[JBI]

You mean the fish god killed and served at banquet at heaven. A bit unkind of god to kill the female so they do not over-reproduce, but not wretched. Went through the biblical texts you mentioned, but the story is skimpy. There is no pathos or any rich details to colour the picture of wretchedness. Maybe the hebrew literature you are privy to weaved a richer tapestry than the english translation of old testament

Maybe I confused him with the Miltonic reading:



Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate
With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes
That sparkling blaz'd, his other Parts besides
Prone on the Flood, extended long and large [ 195 ]
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the Den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast [ 200 ]
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream:
Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam
The Pilot of some small night-founder'd Skiff,
Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell, [ 205 ]
With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind
Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night
Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes:
So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay
Chain'd on the burning Lake, nor ever thence [ 210 ]
Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought [ 215 ]
Evil to others, and enrag'd might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn
On Man by him seduc't, but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd. [ 220 ]
Forthwith upright he rears from off the Pool
His mighty Stature; on each hand the flames
Drivn backward slope thir pointing spires, and rowld
In billows, leave i'th' midst a horrid Vale.
Then with expanded wings he stears his flight [ 225 ]
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky Air
That felt unusual weight, till on dry Land
He lights, if it were Land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire;
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force [ 230 ]
Of subterranean wind transports a Hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thundring Ætna, whose combustible
And fewel'd entrals thence conceiving Fire,
Sublim'd with Mineral fury, aid the Winds, [ 235 ]
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoak: Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next Mate,
Both glorying to have scap't the Stygian flood
As Gods, and by thir own recover'd strength, [ 240 ]
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.


from Isaiah:


In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.


And further in Job, where Job is clearly comparing himself to the Leviathan:



41 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?

4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?

5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?

6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants?

7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?

8 Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.

9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

11 Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.

12 I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion.

13 Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle?

14 Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

15 His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.

16 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

17 They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.

18 By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

19 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

22 In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.

23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.

24 His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.

25 When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

26 The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

27 He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

28 The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

29 Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.

30 Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.

31 He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

32 He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.

33 Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

[luhsun]

Blind puritanical milton was himself more wretched than his creations.
And isaiah and job- leviathan was reduced to the monstrous cartoonish godzilla to be ultimately killed by ultraman - nope, not convinced abt the wretched part.

[mona amon]

Psalm 104:26 KJV

There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.

This is the reference that has stuck in my mind, so when I think of Leviathan, if I think about him at all, I picture this playful monster frolicking in the waves.

[Kafka's Crow]

Molloy, Malone, the Unameable in Beckett's Trilogy. Vladimir and Estragon while they waited for Godot, Ham and Clov as they reached the Endgame.

Gunter Grass's Oskar (The Tin Drum) is also quite wretched as he was not happy even as a baby or even during the early days of his perpetual childhood. Children are meant to be carefree and happy, aren't they?

[Anymodal]

Maldoror, and I agree with Kafka's characters and Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon.

[Kafka's Crow]

Maldoror, and I agree with Kafka's characters and Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon.

Oh yes Maldoror, but Lautreamont's monstrous hero does rejoice in his evil and gloats throughout the poem. So he must be happy in his own unique and unhappy way.

[Weather&I]

It depends, I suppose, on how you define 'wretched'. Perhaps Javert would be a contender?

Javert has my vote too. I mean: To have all of that marvelous intuition of his and to still become a futile slug in the face of the True Law - this is about as wretched as it gets, if you ask me. And the most wretched thing about it is that this sort of character walks our streets everyday, thinking he has everything - from the motives of everybody around him to the universal code of conduct - down to a science. I think Javert has one of the truest suicides in all of literature. His pathology and everything that was going on in his mind was conveyed to us so dreadfully accurate that his suicide became extremely convincing. To have your whole career and state-of-mind shattered like that? That's just appalling! Javert is the most wretched character in all of literature - in fact, almost every character in Les Miserables was wretched. That's why the book is so great! HUGO!

[Eiseabhal]

Well Job is reduced to a wretched physical state and if (as I believe) someone who wanted a happy end had not altered the book then it would be shorter and his physical wretchedness even more apparent and more realistic. But there are wretched characters scattered throughout literature - Catch 22 has them; The Orchard Keeper and Child of God has them; Hardy wrote whole novels on them. Wretchedness is part of the human condition into which we can all fall and from which we can scramble or be pulled so it is not a wonder that there are so many examples to find.

[Dono]

Ophelia was pretty wretched, driven to madness and suicide by her dalliance with royalty...come to think of it her whole family was pretty star-crossed to have been a part of Hamlet's little family drama. Pops gives his life in service to two kings and is stabbed and stuffed in a closet for it...son is brought home from a promising career abroad to seek vengeance only to find himself on the wrong end of his own plan...and sister takes a swim.

[islandclimber]

Many of the characters created by László Krasznahorkai could be described as wretched. János Valuska becomes a wretched man in The Melancholy of Resistance; Grigory Korin is likely both insane and wretched in War & War; every single character in Satantango.

Peter Kien in Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fé seems unaware of his own wretchedness at times, but he certainly cuts a wretched figure.

Budai from Ferenc Karinthy's Metropole.

There are so many wretched characters in literature, they are not hard to find.