Which AC character do you feel you resemble the most, and which character would you like to resemble

taliavishay-arbel

This topic is just for fun. To start it off: I'm afraid I'm rather like Heather Badcock in "The mirror cracked" - wanting to be kind, but not really aware of other people as themselves - and I would most like to be Lucy Eylesbarrow - efficient, kind, and very much her own person.

Griselda

In one sense, I think I might be a bit like Mrs Dane Calthorpe in The Moving Finger, saying things which don't seem to be connected to anything else, and being off the wall. I think I probably have a whacky sort of perception, too. I don't have her forward and confident kind of personality, though.

Griselda

To be honest, Tali, I think that wanting to be kind is very important. I always got annoyed with Jane Austen for the way she had a downer on Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, and Mrs Elton in Emma. Both were trying to be helpful on a very big scale, and in a way which really could have sorted out the life- changing worries of the object of their solicitude. All this 'I'm being correct: I'm being diplomatic' is often a front for not wanting to be bothered to help people.

Anubis

Well, look what happened to Lucy Badcock. I can't think of any character in AC that I am like, but I feel (as I expect most people do) a sense of identity with Captain Hastings, the loyal, standfast gentleman who doesn't quite know what is going on. I would be interested in knowing which person in Miss Marple's village that I remind her of. 

Tommy_A_Jones

I think I resemble Parker Pyne but would like to resemble Bobby Jones, PP is very Fat and Bobby is very adventurous.

taliavishay-arbel

Griselda, Mrs. Dane Calthorpe is one of my favourite characters! I'd like her for a friend. 

I see what you mean about kindness, and I also think it is important - but empathy is also important, so that the kindness can be effective (and as I said, I'm rather weak on that side). Both Mr. Collins and Mrs. Elton are very condescending to the objects of their intended kindness, which spoils it - but in the case of Mrs. Elton, at least her efforts are realistic, leading to getting Jane a job, while Emma, who should and could have befriended her, not only stays aloof but also malingers her with the suspicions about a romance with the husband of her guardians' daughter. I can't say as much for Mr. Collins - he needs a wife, he decides to take one from the Bennet family, treating it pretty much like choosing a horse from a stable - he gives Jane up because he is told she is spoken for, picks Elizabeth and refuses to accept that she also has a choice in the matter, and when it is brought home to him he goes off in a huff and gets engaged to Charlotte. The one ray of light in the story is that Charlotte is a positive character - intelligent, kind and sociable, and Mr. Collins is probably her only chance of marriage, She surely makes him a much better wife than any of the younger Bennet sisters would, and at least she gets something out of it, which she richly earns. 

Griselda

I see what you mean, but couldn't it be the case that Mr Collins is mindful that the family will be de possessed of their home, and is pragmatically thinking of an arrangement which will allow him to help them. He would maybe like to give some of his earnings to them, as they are his cousins, but probably can't, he thinks, quite afford to do so. If he gets a wife from elsewhere, her poorer dependants - younger sisters, etc - will have a claim on them, so this solution fits the situation. As a man of the church, perhaps he thinks marriage is a duty, and not a matter for indulging preferences and whims. Why not marry a good suitable person. I am just re-reading P and P, and you know, Elizabeth doesn't have any deep feelings for Darcy, and only likes the prospect of him more once she has sighted Pemberley. Even Jane says she can get over Bingley, and that it is an attraction of short duration, and a kind of admiration. They are not consumed with all-powerful love themselves. Perhaps Mr Collins is thinking of a kind of arranged marriage, but what else can you do when there is no social security? What does the silly Lizzy think her mother and sisters are going to do for money - sponge of Mr Gardiner, I suppose. She is rude and full of herself, anyway. Fancy not telling Catherine de Bourgh her age, and risking winding her Ladyship up, and spoiling things for Charlotte. It is nice of a lady to invite you round for dinner all the time. Even I'd tell an MP ( to use a modern example) my age, and be polite if one lived next door to me, and invited me round a lot. Yes, very modern, and great fun though she is, Lizzy is no kinder and less self-regarding than anyone else. Her thoughts are always to do with people getting married or admiring one another. She may be clever, and this is displayed by her wit, but contrary to her pronouncements about books and having the opportunity at home to broaden her mind, she is very narrow minded, and has poor general knowledge and not a liberally educated mind. Mr Collins could have a bit of Asperger's Syndrome, and that is why he is pedantic. He is not a bad person, and Charlotte's observations in every respect are clear and astute.

Griselda

Perhaps, Tali, empathy is pretty impossible, because we can never know what another person is truly feeling. You alway, I notice, empathise with the characters in the books you read, so I am sure you are empathetic as well as kind.

taliavishay-arbel

Thank you Griselda! But understanding characters in books is a different skill from understanding people in real life.

Griselda

I guess so. People should judge others by their intentions, though. Kindness will always be right and will always produce good.

silvana

I would like to be Tuppence. She likes adventure, is very good-looking, has  excellent little grey cells and is full of passion !

taliavishay-arbel

Tuppence is so adventurous - everything, mystery, danger, marriage, children - it's all an adventure to her. 

Tommy_A_Jones

You could always by Anne Beddingfield from The Man In The Brown Suit, I think IF I was female which I am not I would be her, I wish Agatha Christie had written a book where a Man goes and has an Adventure, All the men who do have women as side-kicks for want of a better word.