I’m not saying this is a conclusive list of the most notable characters in Literature. These are, however, the ones that stand out the most in my mind. Of course, your reading list and favorites will be different from mine. I am advancing this list in hopes that it will generate some discussion. I present my list in no particular order. The characters you see are just how I thought of them. I did consult some other favorite literary character lists, and many of these on appear on several other lists. My favorite characters are Sherlock Holmes and Atticus & Scout Finch (best duo). I only put titles or authors when I thought some readers might not know them. Please look them up if you don’t know. Also, please contact me and send me your feedback. Thanks, Murray.
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Sherlock Holmes & Mr. Watson
Jay Gatsby, Nick Caraway, Daisy Buchanan ( Great Gatsby)
Dracula & Frankenstein
Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn
Jane Eyre
Robinson Crusoe
Lady Chatterley
Dorian Gray
Ichabod Crane
Bathsheba Everdene (Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd)
Lolita
Atticus, Scout Finch, & Boo Radley
Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
Ebenezer Scrooge
James Bond
King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Lady Guinevere
Detective Dupin ( Poe)
Gandalf, Frodo Baggins (Tolkien-Lord of te Rings)
Phillip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler)
Hamlet
Odysseus
King Lear
Shylock ( Merchant of Venice)
Harry Potter
Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo)
Robin Hood
Uncle Tom ( Uncle Tom’s Cabin)
Mowgli (Rudyard Kipling Jungle Book)
Holden Caulfield ( Catcher in Rye(
Leopold Bloom (Ulysses)
Stephen Daedalus (Portrait of an Artist )
Clarissa Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
The Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)
Nick Adams (Ernest Hemingway)
Bigger Thomas (Native Son by Richard Wright))
Winnie the Pooh
The Cat and the Hat ( Dr. Suess)
Hazel Motes (Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor)
Toad- The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Graham
The Cat and the Hat
Tarzan
Celie, The Color Purple
Charlotte (Charlotte’s Webb)
Rabbit Angstrom (Run Rabbit Run)
The Phantom of the Opera
Josephine March ( Little Women)
Santiago – The Old Man and the Sea
Jake Barnes – The Sun Also Rises
Dean Moriarity – On the Road
Dr. Zhivago
Randle McMurphy, Chief Bromden, Nurse Ratchet (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
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Murray Ellison received a Master’s in Education at Temple University (1973), a Master’s of Arts in English Literature at VCU (2015), and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech in 1987. He is married and has three adult employed daughters. He retired as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctiona##l Education in 2009. Currently, he serves as a literature teacher, board member, and curriculum advisor for the Lifelong Learning Institute in Chesterfield, Virginia, and is the founder and chief editor of the literary blog, www.LitChatte.com. He is an editor for the “Correctional Education Magazine,” and editing a book of poetry written by an Indian mystic. He also serves as a board member, volunteer tour guide, poetry judge, and all-around helper at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond Virginia. You can write to Murray by leaving a Comment or at ellisonms2@vcu.edu
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