I will begin with mine:
Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights. She is literally underrated and reasonably hated by everyone, even myself, but I have always find her tragic in the way she abandons her true love, her freedom, her chaotic nature, for conformity, money, adoration, as to also belong in society, but to belong to a respectable loving family, to get out of the abusive household she lived, so in being selfish and satisfying her whims/insecurities, she treats heathcliff cruelly, and in the process breaks her own heart by throwing away what made her happy. It’s kinda sad the contrast of little Cathy in the forest running without shoes, the little Cathy in the bed with heathcliff, comforting each other after their father’s death, with the abusive and lonely Catherine, who is cold, turning mad. Who hasn’t wanted to belong? Who hasn’t had a person you love dearly who changed to belong in the popular group or in whatever group, or maybe for a crush? It happens and it always end awful.
This is the reason she breaks my heart for I see myself in her, I was also an abused kid who at first didn’t care about external opinions, but something that Nelly, the narrator, didn’t understood about her, is how this desire she has for another family comes for how much she wants some attention, as she was always disregarded for hindley and heathcliff, tempting her to submit to society, so the tragedy is how she believed pretending being another while trying at the same being herself could work, but pleasing yourself comes with a price, and the price was the love of her life.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. This character is superbly written, and the psychological/introspective portrayal of him is a good representation of how many people can be corrupted quickly in the right circumstances. His name means schismatic, meaning how he has two sides, his compassion in war with his rationality and madness. His family, his everything were sacrificing themselves for him, and while they were not at first the principal reason behind the murder he commits, is a factor that made the matter official. Philosophy and ideologies are powerful in the novel, and the way the nihilistic/utilitarian ideas skew what he understands of morality, make him do selfish acts, make him be ruthless. The fact that the pawn breaker is not a good person, gave him for his mind a good justification for murder, but Dostoevsky wrote him so deep, that you can understand the root of that tree of dangerous ideas, the particle, the vulnerability that pushed him, the innate human desire of being special or extraordinary, that was his fatal flaw, and his tragedy is how he made this mistake but at last knows what is hope and love so he redeems himself, accept punishment, while realizing he is not above other men.
by Ok_Focus5022