This will probably be a short post; I just wanted to inform you that I was thinking a while ago and realized that a whole bunch of characters that I identify with, both literary and otherwise, are either insane, outcasts, or end up deep-fried in lava somewhere (or meet other tragic endings).
These include: Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye); Elphaba (Wicked); Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars); Ponyboy (The Outsiders); among others.
I'm wondering if there's a problem here. I mean, I completely identify with all of these people. Now, I'm not as concerned about, say, Ponyboy as I am Holden freaking Caulfield--the guy's a lunatic. Papers have been written on him by psychologists. And I'm sitting there reading the book and thinking, Dang, how did J.D. Salinger get inside my freaking head? That's not good, people! It's not a positive sign for my future!
And Anakin Skywalker? The dude's Darth Vader! And yet, every time he says something, I hear myself--when he thinks in stories, I hear my thoughts! He talks like me, he feels like me...is it just that he represents all of us, or is it that I'm a nutcase?
Elphaba...a smart girl, a prickly girl, intensely aware of the world around her from the day she's born, immediately an outcast. Trying to do right, failing to do anything she sets out to. Misunderstood, a loner, intentionally isolated. God, this is getting deep and slightly depressive. But it doesn't matter. She's me.
And I'm insane.
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