Jade Keller

Dumb ones.

Okay, perhaps I should be more specific. And hate is a strong word for what I feel. Irritation is more precise. Stubborn characters, blind to their own desires, and still insistent upon their misguided course irritate me to no end. And they strike me as being dumb as rocks.

Several people have told me to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. So last night, I went to Borders, sat down with a copy and began to read. And the protagonist of this book (presumably the author herself) was just exactly one of these characters, and within the first chapter I already began to feel the rumblings of annoyance. Characters such as she also seem to appear quite often in romance novels, where perfectly sane, well-grounded women (I notice these characters are often women) ignore themselves completely and do things that are completely stupid only to come around and realize their gut instincts were far smarter than their ill-founded beliefs. I still read them, but oh, I get so frustrated when they ignore what their guts are telling them.

I was particularly annoyed with this one because she loved her husband but wanted a divorce because the life path she had chosen was one of “shoulds”. As in “we’ve been together long enough now, we should get married.” “Now is the age to buy a house, so let’s get one.” “I’m supposed to be having children now, so let’s do it…wait…why am I panicking and hating my life now?” She discovers the life she has is not the one she wants and abandons everything to go on a spiritual quest. The part that bothers me is that I cannot understand why she’s in this situation in the first place. Was she just on auto-pilot? Did she have no sense of her self up until, having been ignored for so long, her heart screamed for attention by pushing her into panic mode? Of course, if she had done everything correctly from the beginning I suppose it wouldn’t have made for a good story, and the journey is probably about her getting more in tune with herself. Otherwise, it is a fairly engaging read, so I will probably finish it at some point. But still.

It is one thing to not know what you want; to be trying to decide what is the best path and honestly not coming up with a preferable solution. It is perfectly fine and understandable to be torn between what your baser desires demand and what your integrity requires. But when sheer stubbornness or complete lack of self-awareness leads down a road where it is patently obvious to everyone that things will end badly, I find I have no sympathy for those characters. Maybe I find them even more repugnant when they are female because I feel they are not good standard bearers for our gender. I love female characters who possess not only verve and integrity, but also compassion and sensitivity. Brains, honor, vigor, and still a warm, passionate heart. I feel you cannot possess all these characteristics unless you have at least some modicum of self-awareness. I love characters like Hermione (the Harry Potter series), Athena (The Witch of Portobello) and Eliza Bennett (Pride & Prejudice), and despise those like the younger Anne Elliot (Persuasion) or Emma Woodhouse (Emma). Not to pick on Jane Austen at all, as she is one of my all-time favorite authors.

Is this just me? What characteristics do you love to see in literary figures? What do you despise?