/lit/ - Literature

>>5840346
op

>>5840346
ur mum

Hazel Grace Lancaster

That bitch from the Awakening
>Boo hoo I'm rich as fuck and have a fuckboy
>I don't have to take care of my kids, just live the artsy lifestyle
>Better killmyself lol

>>5840492
>missing the entire point of the novel
mfw

>>5840512
Stop defending that cunt.

Kvothe

>>5840512

>reminding me that i don't own sauna yet

fuck you

I'm not sure if I've ever hated a character more than Edith from Stoner.

>>5840523
I'm pretty sure you just misread the book, which is okay. I highly recommend you go back and thoroughly read it so you can better understand the themes.

>>5840547
I understood the book perfectly well, actually. I for some fucking reason took a class on the bloody author. She is still annoying cunt.

>>5840547
oh, look: the "you just didn't understand it" faggot
literally the worst people to exist in the lit community

Lenie Clark
Becoming the worst mass murderer in history via apocalyptic plague is not chill in the slightest.
Can't say I hate her for it, but she definitely deserved all the shit she got for it.

>>5840547
No I understood it, and it was taught to me as well.
It doesn't detract from the fact she is a major cunt.

>>5840571
>>5840553
I think her being a "cunt" is pretty justified in the book. She's forced into living a life she doesn't want to live by society and when she realizes that she can't run away from that life she kills herself. Pretty reasonable in my opinion.

I really hated everyone in Rules of Attraction, but I suppose that was kinda the point.

>>5840346
>humbert humbert
>mathieu delarue
>ayn rand as dominique francon in the fountainhead by ayn rand

>>5840346
The narrator in Mein Kampf.
Seriously, fuck that guy.

Satan in Paradise Lost

>inb4 irony of using Blake's illustration

>>5840611
This. People accuse Holden Caulfield of being a whiny brat, but that guy is a whole other league.

>>5840346
The answer is Nastasya Filipovna.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbgv8PkO9eo

>>5840618
( ) ^:

>>5840539
What a fucking bitch.

>>5840623
Is she really vile, though? Frustrating, definitely, but I can't seem to muster up significant moral distaste for her.

Principally, if Myshkin likes a character or thing, it's good, in some inherent and ineffable way.

>>5840694
Really ? I guess I could understand the if'n-Myshkin-likes-em argument.

I really thought Nastasya Filipovna was a loony snake, a damn outstanding illustration of mental illness. Myshkin was nothing but a novelty to her.

>>5840346

Hester Prinn.

Fucking Mordred, leave Arthur and Guinevere alone you shit

>>5840897
>tfw he never read the book but he hates women enough to lie about it
chillingworth was the only villain in that story

>>5840919

If it makes you feel any better, my second pick was Heathcliff.

>>5840582
no thats not reasonable shes a cunt

>>5840558
the "you just didn't understand it" people, who say this without immediately justifying why they think you misread are the /lit/ equivalent of the /g/ "works on my end :^)"

There is a special place in hell for these people.

>>5840924
solid choice
>>5840939
except people only say "you just don't understand" in response to an opinion that is unsupported by most analyses of the text (i.e. "edgy")

if there were any established intellectual basis for seeing Edna as a "cunt," then The Awakening would not be the celebrated feminist novel that it is; ergo, anyone who sees her inalienably as such has either zero context regarding the novel or has context, yet strives to fail to understand it.

if you fall in the former category, then having any one person try to summarize an entire canon of analysis will not do you any good, and you're best off looking into the topic on your own. if you fall into the latter category, no one should ever be subjected to conversation with you, and you should take a vow of silence

Fyodor Karamazov or Natasya Filipovna

>>5841026
>Fyodor
Pitiable ≠ vile. He serves a key purpose and it isn't to arouse our disgust, but pity. Alyosha's relation to Fyodor is the correct one.

>Natasya Filipovna
Already discussed >>5840694

ITT: People who do not understand what the protagonist means.

Zoella

>>5841038
Fyodor is a total dick though. He isn't the main protagonist, but he's a lecherous, cruel drunkard who causes much of the chaos of the story.

His personality is only pitiable in Dimitri's case, where he is a genuinely decent person but has difficulty controlling his passions. Fyodor is just a malicious prick in any situation.

Plus he basically took advantage and fucked a retard.
>>5840990
>intellectual basis for seeing Edna as a "cunt," then The Awakening would not be the celebrated feminist novel that it is
Are you implying that because its feminist it doesn't equal cunt? The two often overlap.

>>5840990
There is zero logical basis for you assertion that the character could not be a cunt as well as the work being a celebrated feminist novel.

she could be a total cunt and it could also be a really well written work that happens to be a good feminist work for any number of reasons.

The awakening is also supper derisive in terms of its analysis so i find it almost laughable that you are arguing here that there are only two possible outcomes for the person who considered the character a cunt.

Edna certainly is a flawed character, thats part of the point. thats not even necessarily what that other anon was even debating.
Its perfectly fine for a woman in a novel to be a flawed character who goes against social norms

I personally would not call her a cunt, or list her as a vial character. but i think she is fucking annoying


People who say "you just dont understand" dont just say that to unsupported analysis. in fact, even if they did that would still be a fucking annoying response.

>>5841056
> He isn't the main protagonist, but he's a lecherous, cruel drunkard who causes much of the chaos of the story.

Sounds a lot like Marmeladov in C&P, no? One would hardly call him "vile", though.

hamlet

avenging his father is one thing but he was basically responsible for turning it into a clusterfuck

macbeth is a less controversial candidate however

>>5841091
MacBeth is just a poor pawn, his wife is the huge asshole in the story

>>5841103
>>>>>/r/mensrights

>>5841103
i knew someone would reply with this. macbeth is cowardly and leeches from his wife's intellect and ambition. i find him far more vilesome than lady macbeth, who is only power hungry

>>5841085
Marmeladov was pitiable because he was a worthless wretch. He had no ill intentions, but was a product of a doomed career and possible insanity.

Fyodor created many of the problems naturally by the way he treated others with such hostility. There was no tragic circumstance that "created" him, he was no product of society. He was a petty childish man who had access to lots of money, blowing it on hedonistic pleasures to pass the time and treated his sons like garbage. He took no responsibility, did not feel remorse and he reaped what he had sown by his creation of Smerdyakov. It's not surprising that most of his sons were so fucked up, each with a certain aspect of his own horrible trait.

Probably the only more vicious character in the novel is Smerdyakov, but even he is somewhat pitiable.

>b-but it's satire
>y-you missed the point of the book you big weenie
Just because you call a character satire, or say you're supposed to hate it doesn't justify anything.

>>5841121
>>5841103
While I don't believe that Lady Macbeth was the sole party at fault, she was the whispering vizier who goaded Macbeth into into killing the king.

Macbeth is more pathetic than anything else, he was perfectly happy sitting in his little position, but his easy manipulation by his wife is indicative of his weak will and cowardice. Lady macbeth is the brains of the operation who uses Macbeth as a tool to get what she wants. She was willing to screw her husband over potentially just to get a leg up on the world to make herself feel better.

Macbeth was the sword, but Lady Macbeth was the hand who wielded it.

Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights is a real scumbag.

>>5841138
Interestingly a large proportion of my female classmates in high school thought Heathcliff was dreamy. There was also some article I read that men should be more like Heathcliff.

This shocked me. Heathcliff was a cruel sociopath who obssessed with his waifu, and was perfectly okay to fuck over everyone else just to feel better about himself. It amazes me that the story is taught as a romance, rather than a revenge plot.

>>5841128
What do you think of Fyodor's initial meeting with Zosima? I think this is quite revealing of his character-- Fyodor is too weak to be vile. He is quite clearly utterly confused, existentially and intellectually. He cannot, like Ivan, be evaluated with a high and lofty moral standard, because Fyodor is altogether unequal to that task. He is a child, he acts hedonistically and stupidly because he is totally innocent, his petty jealousies and vices are those of a child too blind to itself. Any conscious wrong-doing by Fyodor is not fully self-conscious, that is, he is to be forgiven for he knows not what he does.

>>5841151
I believe that his meeting with Father Zossima tells that in the face of a greater man (morally, intellectually) he crumbles. He is not in his position of power or "prestige". Money has no value in the spiritual nature, so he (who is focused solely on the acquisition and spending of said money) is removed from the spiritual nature of life, and by extension, morality. This is not an excuse however.
Aloysha is not particularly brilliant or clever, but his actions and character define a sort of wisdom that does not come with practice. He is more childlike in the sense of his naivety, which often does lead him down a better path in the world.

Fyodor is more of a brutish nature, what happens when the child never finds God or some value in the world beyond the material. It could be pitiable that he is in such a circumstance, but is not a serial killer still evil despite perhaps having a poor childhood? This may be an exaggeration a bit, but I think it holds valid that Fyodor's stupidity does not allow him reprieve from his actions.

>>5841056
cunt is in quote marks for a reason, i'm referring to the idea of a "cunt" as established here:
>>5840492
that being said, i don't know why i'm replying to either of these comments, as if you think "cunt" is a valid term by which to identify anyone or anything, you don't have the cognitive capacity to process what i'm saying
>>5841057
again, i quoted "cunt" because i'm referring to the earlier establishment in this thread of a cunt archetype that she is being argued to fulfill, which is bullshit.

if her negative qualities, as pointed out earlier (non-motherliness, infidelity, eventual suicide), were a part of her character and not simply a natural rejection of persecution, then she would indeed be an annoying/evil character, but then the book would lose its feminist significance.

The Awakening is not "derisive" in its "analysis," that is word salad. i believe you're trying to refer to its propensity for earnestness, in lieu of condescension or demonization. this is because no character in the book is inherently evil or heroic, and each person and sex shows both weakness and strength in the face of the only true heinousness in the equation, i.e. "society"

hoisted by your own petard

>>5841136
It's not satire at all....

Do you know nothing at all?

Holden was J.D.'s re-imagination of the painful, hypocritical, and absence of belonging that comes with the loss of innocence.

He was obsessed because he was 25 when he landed in France on D-Day, an old fucking man compared to the 18-21 year olds who were storming those beaches. He fought in Ardennes during the Bulge and liberated a concentration camp.

He began writing Catcher while sitting in the cold in between the time he was watching young men missing limbs being carried from the front and interrogating German prisoners who wandered into the U.S. lines.

This was what his entire life was about. Starting with WWII. Holden was the despicable embodiment of the loss of innocence, the same as he saw in the faces of the young men he watched go to war to kill.

For fucks sake, you fucking idiots.

>>5841285
>having to know a personal history more interesting than the book itself has got to enjoy it

wow what a great character and novel

>>5841285
No! Don't fall into the trap.

>>5841238
You're the second most retarded tripfag on this board...kitty is #1

>>5841238
>cognitive capacity
>propensity
>in lieu of condescension
>heinousness
>petard

>>5841238
>as if you think "cunt" is a valid term by which to identify anyone or anything, you don't have the cognitive capacity to process what i'm saying
Go be offended somewhere else

>>>5841238
>if her negative qualities, as pointed out earlier (non-motherliness, infidelity, eventual suicide), were a part of her character and not simply a natural rejection of persecution, then she would indeed be an annoying/evil character, but then the book would lose its feminist significance.
I never attacked her for the supposed "natural rejections" such as being un-motherly or her infidelity. I deplore her since she suffers nearly no hardships and has a pretty great life. She doesn't have to worry about her children, she doesn't have to work or be faithful to her waste of a husband, spends her entire days discussing the arts, living a haute bohème. There is no trials beyond being forced to make social appearances with her husband.

If being stuck with a sap who is ignorant of your doings and your love-exploits is enough to make you want to kill yourself, well then tough luck to you then.

Kill yourself

>>5841295
>not understanding the character is about the loss of innocence

You don't need to know a fucking history, you just don't have to be fucking retarded to understand the emphasis on the loss of innocence instead of getting caught up in real life meme hatred you fucking dunce.

I'm sorry, but so many fucking people have misread Macbeth.

He represents a nihilistic masculinity; of using his strength and power to real/good purpose but just because he can.

Reread the fucking tomorrow speech and what he first says when people enter his castle, and how he reacts to Macduff's revelation of "untimely ripp'd".

Y'all have been putting a really retarded feminist reading on Macbeth which doesn't even make sense.

>>5841299
how dare you, i am way more retarded than kitty
>>5841309
if you're having trouble with vocabulary, i tutor ESL students for 10 bucks an hour. hit me up
>>5841313
quoting me twice, 'cause i'm two times as nice???
>I deplore her since she suffers nearly no hardships
my sides can only take so much

she suffers no hardships? she lives in a society that ignores her humanity. she was taught not to think, and she acts accordingly.

she lives a life defined by womanhood and motherhood, which plagues her. to men, she is her gender; to children, their mother; to her peers, a traitor. she is these things because she dares to be a person as well as a woman and a mother, and if she had not been a mother, she would have been other, worse things; that is to say, she had no way in which to be just a person and a woman, and to therefore be crisisless.

living life as a woman is an inherently limiting and frustrating experience, regardless of one's station and responsibilities. that is essentially the only underlying "point" of the entire novel. i wish you the best of luck in your pursuit to learn how to read, but until you've accomplished it, /lit/ is not the place for you

>>5841350
It is a thread
filled with idiots, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing

>>5841038
Most of us don't have the moral strength of Aloysha, if you ever looked outside.

The protag in Molière's Avare.
Sorry if it was too patrician a reference.

>>5841409
Cooool brah

>>5841350
>nihilistic masculinity

yeah, that's why he feels so guilty after he kills duncan. are you implying lady macbeth isn't also nihilistic, if not more so? what is the differenc between nihilistic masculinity and nihilistic femininity, if lady macbeth had to take control of the situation after macbeth sank helplessly into reflection after his first murder?

his tomorrow speech came only after he heard lady macbeth died. his supposed nihilism here only emerges AFTER the fire under his ass has been put out. his reaction to 'untimely ripp'd' was

>Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,
>For it hath cowed my better part of man!

in other words the revelation affected him. then after macduff tells him he might be circus attraction, he suddenly finds motivation again. if he were truly 'nihilistic' as you say, exercising violence for his own sake, he wouldnt have been goaded into battle by a little taunt. he wouldnt have changed his mind so many times, nor felt guilty or paranoid about his decisions. throughout he is reflective, brooding, guilty, paranoid, deeply shaken by his own violence.

i also don't see how finding macbeth the most vilesome protagonist betwen the two is a 'feminist reading.' my reading is that macbeth allows himself to be manipulated against his moral sensibility by everyone up until his death. lady macbeth is at least a soulless monster.

>>5840346
The only book I had trouble finishing because of the "protagonist" was "The Kite Runner". He is completely self-centered and is directly responsible for much of the pain experienced by the other characters in the book - and doesn't learn a lesson from it until, maybe, the final pages. In retrospect, I would consider him to be more of an antagonist, partially excused by some kind of ignorance. Not sure why everyone raved about it when it came out.

John and Bernard from Brave New World. John especially gets on my nerves, he's an elitist idealistic asshole who can't let himself enjoy anything. Bernard is just a whiny cunt. The only likeable character is Mustafa, the supposed antagonist. I couldn't tell if Huxley was trying to write a utopian story from an unusual perspective or just a bad dystopian story.

>>5841483

Great fucking retort. I wish this is what all of /lit/ was like.

>>5840582
Being a cunt is never justified.

This is my problem with feminism.

Both Edna and lady Machbeth are awful, immoral human beings. They're heartless and mean. Given a dick, they'd be the antagonist or the antihero in a story.

One is unfaithful. The other manipulates a weak souled individual to murder.

I stole a down syndrome kids lunch money, but I'm a feminist so it's okay, right guys?

>>5841136
You're supposed to think about WHY he's a smug little shit, you fucking pleb

>>5841598
What do Edna and Lady MacBeth have to do with feminism? In what universe do you think both of these womens' actions are OK?

Richard III or the really sadistic guy from King Lear (Cornwall I think) are probably the objective worst but I'm a lot more unsettled by monstrous people who are better able to present themselves as normal or even likeble, like Humbert Humbert.

>>5841556
that isn't even half of it. its been awhile since ive read macbeth. so i dig around to see if the guy i am arguing with might be right after all. i only found many instances where macbeth is anxious about his killings before doing them in addition to the guilt he feels afterward. my argument is only doubly supported.

the only way you might argue against me is to suggest that a soulless monster is more vilesome than a hypocrite, puppet, pawn, coward, whatever you want to call him. this is fine enough to me, though i dont ultimately agree. for whatever reason and i know this comparison has multiple problems, its like asking me to find a bear that kills a hiker in the forest as responsible as a man that kills with a trembling hand, guilty and repentant afterwards. he knew better, in other words, but still compromised. doubly vilesome, imo, because he allowed himself to be pushed by others. could have stepped up and said no. could have made a stand. but no he caved.

my view is that lady macbeth is exempt from consideration in the same way we might view frankenstein's monster. i think they are both outside the typical moral world as 'most characters.' although frankstein's monster has innocence, lady macbeth has psychopathy, for lack of a better characterization. she is not ambivalent like her husband.

>>5841605

Kate Chopin is admired by the feminist community. She is one of my favorite writers.

Lady Macbeth I never saw as a feminist icon. Especially in Shakespeare's time. I always regarded her as being written as a victim of her time "women's temptation of man a la Eve and the Apple"

But still lady Macbeth was refered to as a feminist character in this thread.

>>5841598
that's not what antagonist means. patrick bateman is a 'heartless and mean,' 'awul' and 'immoral' human being that has a dick. he is still the protagonist.

the protagonist is the character from whose point of view the story is told. the views and actions of macbeth and lady macbeth are the center of attention ove that of duncan, macduff, or anyone else who might be construed as an 'antagonist.' even if lady macbeth was a guy s/he'd still be a protagonist.

>>5841642
Er, uh, feminism isn't *just* about good females in literature, it's about females who DO things. Hanna is more a feminist movie for having a female villain, for instance.

It's about breaking stereotypes of women as helpless in fiction, not about turning women into angels. Desdemona is not a feminist character, for instance.

Just like an intelligent black villain is more meaningful for breaking stereotypes, than a stereotypical black hero is.

>>5841295
You 0% need to know Salinger's personal motivations for writing about loss of innocence and all that, you just need to pick up on how he does it and what it achieves

>>5841642
>lady Macbeth was refered to as a feminist character in this thread

1. only defensively. 2. by who? only by >>5841598 and >>5841350 as i see. so what if two 4chan posts characterize lady macbeth as feminist? that doesn't make her a feminist character in everyone's view. does any published shakespeare scholar agree? that would be more significant imo.

those posts are nothing, there is no substantiation. i could also make a random post saying yossarian is a communist. if another post (from the a different person or probably the same) characterizes yossarian as a communist doesnt make him one.

>>5841663

thank you

Pip in Great Expectations.

Actually every character in that book minus Joe and Magwitch. Fucking hated that stupid book.

Humbert Humbert

>>5841151
he is an adult man. He is not a child, regardless of how he behaves. Acting like a child when you are an adult means you are vile for not wanton disregard of others.

>>5841638
psychopathy means you know the rules, know they are wrong b/c people tell you, but you just don't care.

The person who caved is pitiable and also moral reprehensible. Someone who you say, that poor bastard, it is unfortunate he was such a weak man, or what a waist.

To The psycho that motivated their death, you put a bullet in their head or lock them away. She knew better, understands what is wrong, she is not a child like Frankensteins monster, and she still did it anyway.

I think you view is wrong only b/c you don't present a correct understanding of psychopathy.

Psycho's are not forces of nature, bears kill b/c they are threatened. She killed b/c she was
other people don't matter to her, even though she knows they are people.

>>5840469

>>5841810
in the first case, as i said "for lack of a better term" i am not committed to psychopathy as a characterization of lady macbeth.

however, let's try it anyway. psychopathy is beyond "knowing" a thing is "wrong." id argue that lady macbeth doesnt view murder as a "wrong" thing to do. for her the ends justify the means. psychopathy is about how one doesn't FEEL the same as typical moral agents.lady macbeth does not FEEL the same ambivalence, dissonance, or inner conflict that macbeth does. she does not have the inner conflict macbeth does. she only encourages macbeth against his doubts.

psychopaths, at least if you trust the scientific studies, are not as emotional as everyone else. they are less empathetic, they have less if any fear, they also have less remorse, guilt, or whatever word you'd like to give this aspect. http://http-server.carleton.ca/~hmaibom/research/05_mila005.pdf

psychopaths are also often regarded as "amoral." they do not seem to experience the same levels of guilt or empathy as the ordinary person, owing to biological factors. therefore legal scholars have often recommended that psychopaths be judged in court according to a different standard than ordinary people - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22189-scientific-explanation-of-psychopathy-cuts-jail-time.html#.VIgNxzHF-p0

wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

>>5840346
Merchant of Venice.

>>5841409
it's a comedy, you can't really detest him

>>5841888
Dune being mentioned, I really don't like Paul so far in the book (about 260~ pages in). He's too good at literally everything, it's frustrating. Does he get better as the book goes on?

it's got to be some wretched cuckold from a modern novel or poem

someone like Prufrock but I know there's worse

>>5841136
>being this far off the mark

>ctrl f
>no "nikolai stavrogin"

Go on plebs lol

>ctrl+f
>no Raskolnikov
Raskolnikov

Atticus Finch was truly despicable.

>>5843192
How is Atticus of all people despicable?

>>5840564
>Lenie Clark
tfw pleb fiction

humbert humbert surely takes the cake here?

>>5843295
The trilogy isn't exactly obscure but I'd be hard pressed to call it pleb.

>>5843285

He was a nigger lover.

I'm joking obviously.

I don't know about protagonists, but I really fucking hated Brett from The Sun Also Rises.

>>5843285
He raped his sister, Phoebe.

>>5843320

Hemingway hated her too

>>5841686
Saying someone is a "feminist character" doesn't mean they're ideologically feminist, in fact they could hate women. It means that they transcend the role of women in fiction. If she actually moves things in story, and she isn't a witch, a prostitute, a seductress, or fan service, then she's a feminist character, because feminism philosophy originates in existentialism and transgressing social, and this case literary, roles. It's about creating your own values, meaning, and purpose rather than accepting those normally assigned to a woman, it has nothing to do with morality, in fact it also involves creating your own morality.

Iago

>>5842235
>He's too good at literally everything
>Does he get better
lots

>>5840346
jesus

>>5844963
Like, I mean does he stop being this big amazing dong man who does everything amazingly in just the nick of time?

>>5841238

t. The guy who wanks into the mirror at the special school

Jack Gladney from White Noise

Fuck that guy. What a pathetic leech on society

>>5841145
>>5841145
Are you kidding? That novel is the naked female id. It's like Twilight for intelligent chicks. It's basically pornography - the only reason there weren't sex scenes is because female sexuality isn't goal directed, like the male one, which, comes to a screeching halt with orgasm. Hence their use of the term "dreamy." An aroused man feels anything but dreamy.

>>5840532
His narcissism is justified.

>>5845438
> tfw I want to be a professor
> tfw my discipline is mildly societally parasitic
> tfw malaise, ennui, failed relationships
> tfw a fraud who doesn't know shit about my field (like not knowing German)
> tfw my name is Jack

This book hit way too hard.

Leopold Bloom
John the Savage
Ignatius

>>5846176
>John the Savage

>>5844987
careful with that edge there.

Madame Bovary

>>5846620
you forgot edith stoner

but 2/10

>>5841046
So much this

The shit head from Crime and Punishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXDF_0bVpP4

Coriolanus, OP's pic related.

Not only belligerent though, he's also an impetuous, stubborn brat who is adored despite his massive personal failings.

Joffery lannister.
If you do not agree please come fight me irl bitches.

>>5841313
>she suffers nearly no hardships and has a pretty great life
This fucking delusion of thinking that being forced to live a cushioned life according to the wishes of others is the same as living a fulfilling life.

>>5847035
You're just a pleb.

>>5841810
A psychopath doesn't feel empathy as others do. Blaming a psychopath for being a psychopath makes about as much sense as blaming a bear for being a bear. I don't expect a man with no legs to walk, I don't expect a psychopath to care about other people. Judging a psycho is pointless, identifying them and the origin of their psychopathy isn't.

>>5840539
Same. But she is not a protagonist.

Humbert Humbert is up there.

The Kid from Blood Meridian is also not a very nice guy.

>>5840614
What...? He appears as pretty chill IMO

Iago was pretty fucked up too