21st Century Literature discussion

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the cruelest of all?

Of the fiction you've read, who are some of the worst (as in mean, evil, manipulative, etc.) characters you remember?

To this day Henry Drax from the North Water is the most repulsive character I’ve read about.

Abel in Michel Tournier's The Ogre is a strong candidate for me. But I like that he's constructed as a fairly complex character so Tournier doesn't reinforce problematic cultural myths of good versus evil. If I think of characters who are portrayed in those stark terms then tend to think of figures in children's lit like Cruella de Vil. Although I suppose the libertines in The 120 Days of Sodom, or The School of Libertinage weren't characters I'd be keen to spend much time with but they're as much symbolic as anything else.

Cormac McCarthy's characters are tough to beat, with their belief that cruelty and violence are a philosophical necessity.

The Judge from Blood Meridian is at the top of the list. Chigurh from No Country for Old Men is up there, though.

Glaurung from Tolkien's The Children of Húrin comes to mind.

Dracula is what immediately popped into my head.

Also every single character in Wuthering Heights (the book I love to hate).

And the main character in American Psycho. (I couldn't even finish that book because of the cruelty.)

I can actually think of a lot of characters and I am realizing I read a lot of not-happy fiction.

Phil in The Power of the Dog/ Thomas Savage for out and out cruelty.

For sticking with me over the years, Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment came right to mind when I saw this prompt! Maybe because he is bad and weak so the worst kind of evil, not a monster out there but all to human.

Jenna wrote: "For sticking with me over the years, Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment came right to mind when I saw this prompt! Maybe because he is bad and weak so the worst kind of evil, not a monster out t..."

That was who I thought of first too Jenna - one of the most appalling and despicable people I have ever been stuck in the mind of for several hundred pages.

Though, I also thought of American Psycho. Like Stacia, I DNFed that book early for the same reason.

Hester wrote: "Phil in The Power of the Dog/ Thomas Savage for out and out cruelty."

Good choice. That scene where he's mocking her piano playing with his banjo playing is the one that's really stuck with me for the petty cruelty.

For some reason , the first character who I thought of was Annie Wilkes in Misery. ("I'm your biggest fan!")

Caleb and the priest, and the creepy guy locking up Jude, all three from A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara are all up there

Just remembered Lilian, the cruel and selfish grandmother to Emily in Elizabeth Harrower's masterpiece The Long Prospect . A simply awful woman .

My top unforgettable villain is Arnold Friend in the short story "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

to be followed closely by:

Kathleen Hennessy in The Rise of Life on Earth by Joyce Carol Oates

"The Senator" in Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates.

and Quentin P. in Zombie...by Joyce Carol Oates!

Uriah Heep in David Copperfield