Category Famous Characters from World Literature

The phrase ‘Open Sesame’ is perhaps the first thing that comes to our mind when we think of Ali Baba. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one of the best stories from The Thousand and One Nights. Ali Baba, the hero of the story is a poor woodcutter who one day, secretly watches 40 thieves who were hiding their booty in a cave. The door to the cave can be opened only by the verbal command, ‘Open, Sesame!’

After the thieves leave, Ali Baba uses this magic phrase, takes the riches from the cave, and lives a prosperous life. The thieves eventually suspect Ali Baba, and they hide themselves in large oil jars. These oil jars are stored overnight in Ali Baba’s courtyard.

When Morgiana, Ali Baba’s slave goes to extract oil from one of the jars, she hears a robber’s whisper. Realizing that the robbers hiding in the jar were waiting to kill her master, she pours hot oil into each jar, thus killing the robbers. Morgiana later saves Ali Baba’s life a second time. Ali Baba in gratitude, frees her. She marries Ali Baba’s son, and the entire family lives happily.

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Who doesn’t like Mowgli, a boy who is abandoned in an Indian jungle during a tiger attack? Mowgli is perhaps the most famous character created by Rudyard Kipling.

Mowgli is adopted by the Wolf Mother Raksha who gives him this name- a name that conquered the hearts of children around the world. The word Mowgli means frog; he gets this name because he has no fur, and refuses to sit still. Sher Khan, the tiger demands that they give him the baby, but the wolves refuse.

Mowgli grows up with the pack and soon becomes one among them. He hunts with his brother wolves and is able to stare down any wolf. His ability to remove the thorns stuck on the paws of his brothers is deeply appreciated as well. Finally, Mowgli stumbles across a village where a woman named Messua adopts him. This forces him to come to terms with his human nature.

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Author Lewis Carroll wrote this story for his young niece Alice. Alice, who falls asleep in a meadow, dreams that she follows a White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She then falls into a dreamland full of wonders.

Alice has many wondrous adventures with thoroughly illogical and very strange creatures, often changing size unexpectedly. Alice’s size changes too. On one occasion, she grows as tall as a house. Later, she shrinks to the size of a finger. She encounters the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the Duchess with a baby that becomes a pig, and the Cheshire Cat.

Alice attends a strange endless tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. She plays a game of croquet with an unmanageable flamingo for a croquet mallet and uncooperative hedgehogs for croquet balls. Later, she meets a sobbing Mock Turtle, who describes his education in subjects such as Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

Alice is then called as a witness in the trial of the Knave of Hearts, who is accused of having stolen the Queen’s tarts. However, when the Queen demands that Alice be beheaded, Alice realizes that the characters are only a pack of cards, and she then awakens from her dream.

Little Alice appears in two novels- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Alice has been identified as a cultural icon.

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The American novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs first created Tarzan in 1912 for a magazine story. But Tarzan became so popular that two years later, he published a novel named Tarzan of the Apes. It was followed by a series of successful sequels that sold more than 25 million copies across the world.

Tarzan is the son of an English nobleman who gets abandoned in the great jungles of Africa. He is then found and raised by a tribe of great apes. In the course of a series of improbable but exciting adventures, he learns English, meets and falls in love with Jane, the daughter of an American scientist, and recovers his title.

Tarzan is a tall, handsome man of athletic build with grey eyes and long black hair. He is courageous, intelligent, loyal, and steadfast. However, he forgets his ethics and takes revenge when his ape mother Kala is killed in Tarzan of the Apes and when he believes Jane; his wife has been murdered in Tarzan the Untamed.

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Let us now turn our attention to a superspy. The mere mention of Agent 007 is enough to thrill many of us. Trained in espionage and the martial arts, James Bond is a part of the British Secret Service, or MI6. He is always in action, thwarting the enemies, catching international criminals and proving his brilliance time and again.

James Bond’s style and charisma are unmatched, but despite his popularity, he is virtually friendless. James Bond was created by Ian Fleming for his 1953 thriller Casino Royale. Fleming based James Bond on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division and 30 Assault Unit during the Second World War. ‘Bond is a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war’, Fleming once said.

Fleming died in 1964, but this character was taken up by many other authors including Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd and Anthony Horowitz. Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz that came out in 2018 is the latest novel featuring James Bond.

James Bond stories have been adapted for television, radio, comic strips, video games and films. The Bond films are renowned for a number of features. Their theme songs have received Academy Award nominations on several occasions. Other attractions in most of these films include Bond’s cars, his guns, and the gadgets that he uses.

Sherlock Holmes needs no introduction; he is the best-known fictional detective and his fame surpasses every other fictional detective ever created. His proficiency in observation, logical reasoning, forensic science and nose for details makes him different from the rest of the crowd. Sherlock Holmes was created by the British author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Holmes calls himself a ‘consulting detective’ and is busy solving many criminal cases across London, the south of England and continental Europe.

The mastermind of Sherlock Holmes becomes clearer when explained by Dr. John H. Watson, his companion. Holmes and Watson solved many cases together.

Holmes works as a detective for twenty-three years, with Watson assisting him for seventeen of those years. There are 56 short stories and four novels featuring Sherlock Holmes. Holmes first appeared in print in 1887 in the short story A Study in Scarlet. This quirky detective became an instant hit after the first series of short stories.

Let us now talk about a play about family memories. The Wingfield family is presented in The Glass Menagerie, a play by Tennessee Williams.

The family consists of Amanda Wingfield, and her children, Tom and Laura Wingfield. If you are wondering about Mr. Wingfield, he is mentioned only occasionally in the play. He had abandoned Amanda long back.

Amanda had a comfortable youth, but is now struggling to raise her children. She wishes for her children to have the same comforts as her but, her devotion to them almost makes her appear hateful often. Though her son Tom wants to be a poet, he works at a shoe warehouse to support the family. Needless to say, he is frustrated by his job.

Tom feels both obligated and burdened by his family and longs to escape. His nightly excursions to the movies offer him some escape from reality. His sister Laura is mentally fragile; a childhood illness has left her limp and isolated from the rest of the world. No wonder she suffers from an inferiority complex. She creates a world of her own, symbolized by her collection of glass figurines. The name of the play comes from Laura’s collection of glass figurines- The Glass Menagerie.

The Glass Menagerie made the name Tennessee Williams popular in the literary circles of America and the rest of the world. The play has strong autobiographical elements; it features some behaviours of the author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister.

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Count Dracula is remembered with a mix of horror and admiration by the readers. Bram Stoker is credited with creating this legendary vampire. Though centuries old and undead, Dracula is portrayed as handsome and charismatic. This was different from the portrayal of vampires up until then; they were often shown as repulsive corpse-like creatures.

Dracula is a Transylvanian nobleman who inhabits a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass. He would bite people and turn them into vampires. Dracula decides to move to London from Transylvania. He summons Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker’s employer.

In the beginning, Dracula charms him with his cordiality and knowledge; he even rescues Harker from the clutches of the three vampire sisters in the castle. In fact, Dracula just wants to keep Harker alive long enough to complete the legal transaction and to learn as much as possible about England. He later leaves for England leaving Harker to the three sisters. Harker barely escapes. The rest of the novel is about Harker and his friends defeating Dracula.

Dracula is perhaps the most famous vampire in history. This vampire has appeared frequently in popular culture, from films to animated media and even on breakfast cereals!

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The Count of Monte Cristo is Alexander Dumas’s most popular work and is celebrated as a classic. The novel is set in the time of the Bourbon Restoration, a time when Napoleon I abdicated was abdicated and the Bourbon monarchs were restored to the throne in France. Like many of his books, this novel is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.

The Count of Monte Cristo talks about Edmond Dantes, an innocent man who is unjustly held in prison, and later manages to escape and takes revenge. Undoubtedly, Edmond Dantes is the protagonist of this much-loved novel. In the beginning, he is portrayed as an honest and loving man. His character undergoes a complete shift after he is framed for a crime which he did not commit; he turns bitter and vengeful. When he is free and enormously wealthy, he takes it upon himself to reward those who have helped him in his plight and punish those who were responsible for his years of suffering.

During the year 1866, ships of various nationalities sight a mysterious sea monster. The US government assembles an expedition in New York City to find and destroy the monster. Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: A World Tour Underwater is about finding this monster.

There were many myths and stories about sea giants and sea monsters. Apart from adventure, the novel also talked about science. It was an adventurous science fiction story.

Pierre Aronnax, a famous marine biologist joins the expedition that lasts for five months, ending near the coast of Japan. There, their ship locates the monster and it damages the ship’s rudder. To the crew’s amazement, the monster turns out to be a futuristic submarine; they’re captured, hauled inside, and introduced to the submarine’s mysterious manufacturer and commander, Captain Nemo. Captain Nemo seems to have a dual motivation: a quest for scientific knowledge and a desire to take revenge on terrestrial civilization.

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