Who hasn’t heard of Scrooge? Or seen a
cold-hearted miser and been sure they’ve met Scrooge’s brother? (Disney even
recreated the Dickens character as Scrooge McDuck.) Or we may meet a total
optimist whose personality cheers us all and recognize a Pollyanna. Memorable fiction characters from beloved books are so familiar, their names enter our
daily lives and vocabulary. Here
are more from an almost endless list:
Quixotic comes from Cervantes’ novel,
Don
Quixote. The hero is a gangling, near-sighted idealist who sets out to
revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and restore justice to the world. His
peasant squire, Sancho Panza, is the perfect foil to highlight his master’s
unreasonableness while literally tilting at windmills on his knightly quest.
Today it describes those who are extravagantly chivalrous or romantic, impractical visionaries. I enjoy being around them more than the lovable but sad, pessimistic thistle-eating donkey Eeyores from A. A.
Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books.
Most say that Don Quixote partially inspired Don Juan, a fiction symbol for libertinism. At the height of his infamy,
he seduces a girl of noble family and kills the father avenging her. His
vitality, humor, and arrogance, are dramatic
tension building to his deserved fall. His name stands for debauchery today.
Frankenstein is a creature dreamed of and then developed by
Mary (Mrs. Percy) Shelley for a contest challenge she and her husband and friends
initiated while touring Europe for who could write the best horror story. Her
tale is of an obsessed scientist who assembles a living being from parts of
exhumed corpses who then terrorizes his creator. She won, hands down, and the
name entered our experience.
The Grinch, from Dr
Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, is a nicer green but grouchy, cave-dwelling monster. Today Grinch describes any spoilsport or grump.
I’d rather see than be one—and they do live among us.
Jeeves, the brilliant gentleman’s gentleman who
repeatedly extricates the wealthy young man he serves from trouble, appeared in
PG Wodehouse's stories and novels for many years. Today his name represents capable
people who consistently provide faultless answers for any social occasion.
Malapropropisms connect to Mrs Malaprop, a
character in Sheridan's 1775 play, The
Rivals. Known for her muddled use of language, her name comes from the
French phrase mal à propos, meaning "misplaced" or "wrongly
positioned”. Her lines include many entertaining unintentional terrors. Today
the term stands for a comical misuse of words resembling others in sound. Here
are some fun ones: He had to
use a fire distinguisher. Dad says the monster is just a pigment of my
imagination. Good punctuation means not to be late. He's a wolf in cheap
clothing.
Many other endearing (or
unendearing) characters deserve mention. Tell us who you believe should also be on this
list, and why?
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