Most Horrible Character

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Originally Posted by Madame X

Admittedly, her spontaneous sojourn into the woods without a single thought as to how she might thenceforth sustain herself might be considered a bit...rash by some. :cool: No doubt an interesting episode, but I daresay the last (beginning with the introduction of St. John, et al). As far as her relationship with Rochester is concerned, call it lack of imagination but I remain utterly unconvinced. He is a constant brooder which intimates a "depth" of character that is never, in my eyes, truly substantiated. In a good mood, he's a doting dolt. Either way, I fail to see what constitutes their attraction (particularly her to him) unless I'm to believe it's a rather simple matter of mutual ugliness. :angel:

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Hmm. Are you not impressed by the Byronic hero? ;)

I always thought she was attracted to him because (horrible cheesiness alert, can't think of a way of saying this in a less nausea inducing way) he saw her for who she really was, unlike the moajority of the characters in the novel. I like the way he always refers to her as some sort of faery or sprite.

But each to their own! I dislike characters and books that some people love so I won't try to force my opinion on you.

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Originally Posted by ImaginaryFriend

Cathy from Wuthering Heights. She was so manipulative and cruel.

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Yep, she so was. Needed a good slap.

One particular character I dislike immensely (probably because I've recently read the book and its fresh in my mind) is Humbert Humbert from Lolita.

Yes I know its an easy choice but apart from disliking him for the...errr..."obvious" reasons, his personality is utterly dislikeable. He is pompous and amazingly arrogant in the way he considers himself above almost anybody and everybody he encounters. His disdain for females, especially older women (well, older than Lolita) is so strong that it becomes to be amusing - especially the way he constantly refers to Lolita's mother in bovine terms!

Hats off to Mr. Nabokov for creating such a despicable character!

I forgot the Thenardiers(spl?) and their daughter Eponine from Les Miserables. Horrible people.

Rodolphe Boulanger from Madame Bovary is getting on my nerves for being absolutely arrogant and manipulative.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Yep, she so was. Needed a good slap.

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:lol:

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, and his friends. I end up wanting Shylock to get his pound of flesh.

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I agree with that! Did you see the film version with Jeremy Irons as Antonio? The spitting scene at the beginning kind of turned me against him...

The evil aristocrats trying to seduce Nicholas Nickleby's sister are also up there. The most evil one gets an excellent comic comeuppance though. Nicholas might be the most likeable character in fiction... a bit too good to be true though... but who cares...

Daniel Quilp from The Old Curiosity Shop. I couldn't wait for him to meet his end.

Kate in East of Eden.

Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. Are operas literature?

I hate Ewels from "To kill a Mockingbird", and Alden Pyle from "The Quite American", though I liked him at first.

Archimandrite Luseferous from Iain M Bank's The Algebraist. He had the head of a rebel leader kept alive so that he could use the rebel leader's living head as a punchbag each morning. All aspects of his life seemed to include a vicious sadism including his use of women.

Nicholas Bulstrode from Middlemarch, because he's such an ugly hypocrite

I've only read 30 pages of Silas Marner so far, but I'm finding Dunstan Cass horrid.

I thought Iago from Othello was horrible. He's a brilliant character, but his manipulation of Othello results in, I believe, every death that occurs, unless I'm leaving out someone.

Antonio from Bless Me, Ultima, was a coward. He's an emasculated wimp who lacks any form of moral fiber. Him hiding behind his mother for most of the major decisions, until the very end, was terribly frustrating to read.

Alex in A Clockwork Orange
pure evil

Obidiah Slope from Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope makes me cringe!
and the horrible slimey little Noel Vanstone in No Name by Wilkie Collins.
I'm sure there's plently more but theres 2 to be going on with.

Scarlet O'Hara

I don't know. It's a contest:

Aramis (The Three Musketeers) turns quite horrible at the end of the trilogy... Horrible enough... I believe so...

Heathcliff. He's been named a couple of times, but somehow he is very pitiable. Yet he is truly horrible and scary before the end.

Tom Tulliver (The Mill on the Floss): he is so much convinced of his own righteousness that you would shout at Maggie to leave him and marry her guy. Even with that deformed wreck (that's how they considered it then) she'll be better off than with such a brother. (Yes, it's a long time since I was considering to give up. I am glad I didn't :))

Alec d'Urberville: he is also quite horrible, but maybe a little stuck in the ways of his class. Useless he is, but he is also convinced of the ways that are...

As a person... I would have to go for Tom Tulliver as he is not educated by the ways of his class, but just by his own pride, at the cost of his sister's happiness. She gives him all, he takes it for granted and still believes he is superior.

From a factual point of view, there is no contest, is there. It has to be Heathcliff. Aramis and D'Urberville are somewhere in the middle... Too much ambition on the one side and boredom on the other.

But that is so far of course... Next book will maybe bring another horrible one. :D

A truly horrible character is Félix Tholomyès, in Victor Hugo's novel "Les Misérables", the student who abandoned Fantine, and was consequently responsible for all her misery:

Félix Tholomyès — Fantine’s lover and Cosette’s biological father. A wealthy student, he cares more about his own welfare than for his responsibilities. He does not think much of his relationship with Fantine, considering it as "a passing affair." After impregnating Fantine, he abandons her as a joke. Hugo then concludes Tholomyès’ involvement in the story by saying that "twenty years later, under King Louis Philippe, he was a fat provincial attorney, rich and influential, a wise elector and rigid juryman; always, however, a man of pleasure."

(quote: Wikipedia)

I do think Tholomyès is pretty horrible, but not volunatrily so, or rather Fantine's naivety also had a lot to play in that episode. She meets a wealthy student, has a good time (obviously also in bed), but did she think for one minute that he was going to marry her or what? Rich, studying at the Sorbonne (probably) in order to become a lawyer (?)... Did she really think that she would have made any chance, already alone in the world at about 17 and no money? That is not a wife for a Tholomyès.

Rich people never marry poor people. She could have let Tholomyès for what he was and turned her eyes to an honest worker and maybe she would have married and been happy...

I suppose that is what is really horrible, the surroudings of the situation. Her naivety and yearning for nice clothes and pleasure together with his taking advantage.

I couldn't take Tholomyès/Fantine seriously at all. We've heard that story too many times before, and Victor Hugo didn't succeed in making it any different.