The Book Club

Character Analysis: Psylocke, the telepathic ninja with race issues

Character: Psylocke

Real Name: Elizabeth Braddock

Nicknames: Betsy, Betts

Former Aliases: Captain Britain, Lady Mandarin

First Appearance: Captain Britain (Vol. I) #8

Currently Appearing: Uncanny X-Force, Uncanny X-Men, and X-Men

Formerly Appearing: Captain Britain, Exiles, New Exiles, and X-Treme X-Men

Created by: Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe

Portrayed in TV/Film by: Grey DeLisle (voice, Wolverine and the X-Men); Meiling Melancon (X3: The Last Stand); Tasha Simms (voice, X-Men)

Character History: Betsy Braddock was born to privilege in England, unknowingly the daughter of a man from the alternate dimension Otherworld. She had an older brother, Jamie, who had reality-warping powers and insanity issues, and a twin brother Brian, who became Otherworld's champion in this reality, known as Captain Britain.

Betsy started to develop her own mutant powers of telepathy, with her own signature purple butterfly effect. She was recruited into a British spy division, lost her first true love, took up modeling, was nearly raped by her twin's alternate reality counterpart (who she killed), and for a time, took on her brother's position as Captain Britain. Betsy stopped adventuring when she was attacked by Slaymaster, who blinded her.

Eventually, Betsy was kidnapped by Spiral and her body shop. Spiral gave her bionic eyes, allowing her to see again and allowing Spiral to spy on the X-Men. Betsy was rescued by the X-Men and took the new codename Psylocke. Psylocke stayed at the X-Men's school until several X-Men were injured protecting other mutants called the Morlocks and Psylocke was left alone to defend the school against the villain Sabretooth. She won and became a larger part of the team.

Psylocke remained with the team for a long time, including sacrificing her life fighting the Adversary and being resurrected by Roma. When the majority of the X-Men were again lost, Psylocke used her telepathy to push her teammates into using the Siege Perilous, a gem giving to them by Roma, to escape from the bionic Reavers.

Siege Perilous teleported them away from the Reavers, but also granted their true desires in strange ways. Psylocke was taken back to Spiral's body shop, and her mind was transfered into that of the Japanese mutant Kwannon. She was then given to the villain Mandarin and brainwashed.

Now known as Lady Mandarin, Betsy attacked her teammate Wolverine but he eventually freed her. Psylocke found that she had new powers: a psychic knife that could cause physical pain or unconsciousness and high-level ninja skills. She traveled with Wolverine until they rejoined the X-Men, even though she didn't know what had happened to her in the Siege Perilous.

Psylocke became part of the Blue Team and started a relationship with her fellow X-Man Archangel. Kwannon reappeared in Betsy's original body, claiming to be the real Betsy Braddock and called herself Revanche, but Kwannon was dying from the Legacy Virus. When the Virus amplified the telepathic powers Kwannon had gained during the body swap, the women finally learned the truth but at the price that the Virus was killing Kwannon. Kwannon's former lover killed her at her request to stop the pain.

Psylocke remained with the X-Men until she was nearly killed trying again to stop Sabretooth, this time from killing the X-Force member Boomer. Archangel saved her life with the mystic Crimson Dawn, granting Psylocke shadow-teleporting powers. Her own telepathy was shut down in a fight with the Shadow King, and then later swapped with Jean Grey's telekinectic powers. Psylocke then left the X-Men mansion to travel with a splinter team but was killed in battle by Vargas.

Psylocke was revived by her older brother Jamie and returned to the X-Men, but Psylocke failed to save him from himself. Psylocke was then summoned by the dimension-hopping Exiles, and helped them to restore reality for some time. She was returned to Earth when the Sisterhood of Mutants were planning to resurrect Jean Grey and used Psylocke as a test, pulling her back into the real world.

Psylocke returned to the X-Men, moving to their new home at Utopia, an island near San Francisco. Recently, Psylocke joined X-Force in the hopes of freeing Archangel, who she had started dating again, from Apocalypse's influence. Psylocke failed, and Archangel's personality was killed, while his body survived. Psylocke remains with the X-Men and X-Force and is currently heading Utopia's security force.

Personality: Psylocke's personality has gone under several drastic changes through her years of adventuring. She began was a beautiful, headstrong girl, who fell into a depression after losing her sight. Joining the X-Men, she regained her sense of adventure and her British wit. As a ninja, Psylocke could be much more quiet, reserved, and secretive, a trait she still retains. Psylocke is quite brave and loves her family, but is not afraid to kill if she needs to, a trait that has intensified since she joined X-Force.

Archetypes: Psylocke, since her Lady Mandarin incarnation, has been The Ninja, a silent killer type. Psylocke is often displayed as Cheesecake and Pretty Girl, using her body get her way. She has often been the Plot Device, especially her repeated deaths and resurrections and new power sets. Her deaths are also an example of Women in Refrigerators. Psylocke is mainly, though, a Psychic.

Other Versions: In some versions of reality, Psylocke is either still Lady Mandarin or Captain Britain. In the Age of Apocalypse, Psylocke retains her Japanese body, but it is unknown if this character is Betsy or Kwannon. She later helps found New Japan. In the Days of Future Past world, Psylocke joins the evil Hellfire Club and later, Excalibur, where she dies trying to rescue Douglock. In the Earth X reality, Psylocke retains (or regains) her British body and has greatly amplified powers. She is part of the royal family of England in this reality and helps her brother kill the devil Mephisto. In the House of M world, Psylocke is again part of the royal family but adventures around the world with Rachel Grey. In the Age of X, Psylocke dates Iceman and is part of the team of Force Warriors that builds up the X-Men's last defense against humanity every day. And finally, in the Ultimate reality, Psylocke was a British spy who died and found herself in the body of a recently deceased girl named Kwannon. She eventually joined the X-Men and in one future, married that world's Bishop. She may or may not have been killed recently.

Main Analysis: Pictured way above, at the start, is both of Psylocke's selves. The left half is her modern appearance, which she has had since her Jim Lee and ultraviolent 90's reinvention as a Japanese ninja. On the right is her original purple outfit, with the butterfly effect and British body. And it's this oddness that makes Psylocke one of the most complicated of the X-Men.

The idea of the X-Men is simple: they are mutants, who are feared and hated by normal humans, but they have sworn to protect the world that fears and hates them. The central theme here is obviously racism and other types of prejudice. Having one character to have literally changed race over the course of her history should make for an interesting idea.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this really goes unexplored. When Kwannon appeared, in Psylocke's original body, I'm not 100% sure what the writers wanted to do. Psylocke's new swimsuit outfit was quite popular for its cheesecake factor, wherein artists would frequently drew her stretching or bending over.

But then here was Kwannon, a poor Japanese woman in Betsy's original body, who had lost her ninja abilities and was dying. The irony then is that Psylocke's original body is dead, as Kwannon died shortly after her first appearance. Whether it was always the intention (to explain Psylocke's new body and then kill off the problem in one stroke) is unknown, or at least, I don't know it.

But it does bring up a really important issue: how much worse would this have been if Psylocke had been transferred to a black or Native American or Hispanic body? In comic book art, it's somewhat hard to tell the race of characters sometimes, except for coloring or dialogue. In Psylocke's case, she often appears white in her modern incarnation, especially since she still speaks with a British dialect.

In a series about prejudice, what does it say that the one woman who should have more to say than anyone doesn't say anything at all? Most of the time, Psylocke's transformation from white to Asian is barely commented on. And even when Psylocke's brother Jamie restored her life - why would he restore the Japanese Psylocke, since he never knew his sister in that body?

The answer is that Psylocke's current form is the most recognized form, and is the only one to appear in other media. Even the producers of the X-Men movies didn't know what to do with her, whether the minor villainess that appeared in the movie  was supposed to be Psylocke or if she was Kwannon.

To put it simply, even in a book about prejudice, race is still too touchy of an issue to really delve into, even if Psylocke already has the perfect opening.

Similar Characters: Other X-Men Character Analyses: Emma Frost and Shatterstar.

Other Female Comic Book Ninjas: Marvel's Elektra, DC's Lady Shiva, and GI Joe's Jinx.

Other Race-Changed Characters: Marvel's Mach III (who had a surgery that altered his race from white to black transformed his appearance to conceal his identity - he was eventually returned to his original looks), DC's Perry White in the new Superman movie (White is, well, white in the comic books and most other incarnations, and in the new movie, will be played by Laurence Fishburne), and Marvel's Kingpin in the Daredevil movie (Kingpin is normally an Italian mobster but in the movie was portrayed by Michael Duncan Clarke).

Buy Works with Psylocke Here: X-Men: Psylocke, Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution, and X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus - Volume 1 (X-Men Omnibus).

Quote Analysis: Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Poem: The Road Not Taken

Book: Mountain Interval

Author: Robert Frost

Publisher: Henry Holt (1920)

Genre: Poetry

Character Speaking: Unknown Narrator

Analysis: If you follow my Twitter account (follow me here!), you know that on Friday I taught Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken in my Englist 111 (the basics of poetry, drama, and fiction) class. I was pumped to blow my students' minds by telling me that Frost's poem, often quoted by politicians and the like as a piece of inspirational dogma, might not be as hopeful as most people think it is.

Sadly, my students didn't know the poem in the first place, so the whole blowing their minds thing didn't happen. It made sad. Both because I didn't get to watch their faces as they made the connection and because that means they don't know one of the most famous twentieth century American poets.

But, back to the analysis: the last two lines above (the quoted portion is the poem's last stanza - you can view the whole thing here) have often been emblazoned on many high schools and other assorted places where inspiration is vital to continuing on in the midst of darkness. Unfortunately, if you read the first line of the last stanza, instead of just the last two lines, you get a whole other picture altogether.

With just the last two lines, taking the road less traveled has made all the difference - a seemingly positive idea. But adding to it the first line of the stanza's "I shall be telling this with a sigh", we get a whole other picture. We don't tell happy things with a sigh. We tell sad things with a sigh. At the most, we tell wistful things with a sigh.

In other words, taking the lesser worn road made all the difference - but not necessarily in a good way. There's nothing in the word to say that difference means better, which is the common misconception about this poem. Mostly, it's the now common "Making a difference" phrase that has helped to alter this poem's meaning, but in general, it's the lack of taking in the whole poem that really does it in.

Even in previous stanzas, there are hints that the lesser traveled road might not be the best place to be. One college classmate of mine even managed to make a case that our speaker is actually dead - the sigh being his last breath and the fact the speaker can never return again.

The lesson here? Never take just part of a poem (or just a piece of any narrative) and try to use it to create the whole picture. It's like taking just one scene from a movie and deciding what that movie's plot is. Imagine trying to figure out the entire plot by only watching the "I'll have what she's having" part in When Harry Met Sally or just seeing Twilight's birth scene. Works of arts are meant to be viewed as a whole, not in pieces.

Buy It Here!: The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged

Character Analysis: Prim Everdeen, The Hunger Games' Perfect Plot Device

Character: Primrose Everdeen

Nickname: Prim

From: The Hunger Games trilogy

First Appearance: The Hunger Games

Last Appearance: Mockingjay

Created by: Suzanne Collins

Portrayed in Film by: Willow Shields (2012 - pictured)

Character History: Prim is from an alternate future Earth, where the Americas have been renamed Panem. Somewhere in the current Appalachian Mountains is District 12, a coal-mining center where Prim was born, along with her older sister Katniss. Their father dies in a mining accident.

Each year, the Capitol of Panem holds the Hunger Games, where a boy and girl from each of the twelve districts are chosen to compete in a gladiator-style, televised competition, where the only winner is the sole survivor. Prim, in her first year eligible, age twelve, is chosen, but Katniss volunteers to take her place.

Prim remains in District 12 with their mother, a skilled but depressed healer, and is protected by Gale, Katniss' close friend and probable future husband. Katniss, along with Peeta, the boy chosen that year, manage to survive the games, and Prim moves with her family into the mansion given to the winners.

When both Katniss and Peeta are forced back into the Games the next year, Prim again remains behind. And when Katniss and Peeta manage to set off a revolution during the Games, in which the districts rebel against the Capitol, Prim escapes the near immediate desctruction of District 12 with her mother.

They are rescued, along with Gale and his family, by the poeple of the mysterious District 13, a former nuclear site that was allowed to live on its own after the last rebellion. Prim trains as a medic, in order to help the cause, and is eventually reunited with the rescued Katniss.

Prim becomes part of the rebellion and is part of the final attack on the Capitol, serving as a field medic. She is killed during battle, by bombs that may have been set off by the rebels themselves in order to galvanize the districts against the Capitol. Katniss kills the leader of the rebels in response, setting in motion the rest of Katniss' life and the future of Panem.

Personality: Prim, before being chosen for the Games, is a smart and sweet young girl. She is great with animals, including a goat and a fiesty old cat. After Katniss's victory, Prim dedicates herself to the medical arts and is quite gifted. During the revolution, she wants to do her part, just like her sister.

Archetypes: Prim is the Little Sister, a slightly annoying, usually cute character that often causes problems for the main character. She is also a Plot Device, for most of her actions in the story cause plot progression and appears very little elsewhere in the story. In this regard, she is also the Sacrifice, a character designed with the sole purpose of dying to propel the story.

Other Versions: It is known that in the upcoming movie version of The Hunger Games, it will be Prim who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin that becomes the symbol of the revolution, not Katniss' friend Madge, who does not appear in the movie.

Main Anaylsis: A character as plot device is a perfectly common storytelling trick, wherein one character becomes responsible for the majority of the book's forward momentum.

Prim is the plot device that both begins and ends the trilogy. In The Hunger Games, she becomes the catalyst for the story itself: she is chosen for the Games, but her sister Katniss, our main character and narrator, takes her place by volunteering. While we see very little of Prim for the rest of the book, she is constantly there.

Katniss is fighting for Prim, to return home and protect her from the world and the fear of starving to death, as those in District 12 are always hungry. Katniss's doomed ally Rue, another young girl, just twelve, is a Prim stand-in inside the Games, allowing for Katniss to claim violence on those who would hurt her sister.

In Mockingjay, Prim's death, which may very well have been planned by the rebels but Katniss never knows for sure, catapults the end of the series. Her death immediately leads to Katniss assassinating rebel leader President Coin, which in turn leaves open the door for a just ruler - the plot's resolution. Also, since Gale (one corner of the Katniss-Gale-Peeta love triangle) designed the bomb that killed Prim, Katniss can no longer look at Gale in a romantic way. In this regard, Prim's death ends both major aspects of the series: the romance and the rebellion.

In turns of traditional structure, Prim represents both the inciting incident and the climax. Prim being chosen for the Games is the inciting incident, the part of the plot that sets up the conflict. It is the Game that causes Katniss to become the symbol of rebellion and reveals Peeta's love for her (it's hinted at that she would have never had known otherwise). Prim indirectly creates both storylines.

And Prim's death is the climax of the story, because it essentially causes the rebellion to end and forces Katniss to choose Peeta over Gale. The climax of a story is the moment in which the door slams shut and no more choices can be made - Prim's death is the beginning of that climax, which ends with Coin's death and the book's denouement.

In this way, Prim is the perfect plot device. She has few characteristics that are her own, beyond being a sweet girl with some medical skill, but she is essential to this series for the things that happen to her. Like Dumbledore before her, the construction of the series almost makes it necessary for Prim to die. It is only in her sacrifice that the storylines can be resolved, and Katniss's own fate be decided.

Similar Characters: Other Characters as Plot Device Analysis: Jane Eyre's Bertha.

Perky Little Sisters: Lucy Pevensie from CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Ramona Quimby from Beverly Cleary's Beezus and Ramona, and Lydia Bennet from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Characters Killed to Advance the Plot: Dumbledore from JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Nightcrawler in Marvel's X-Men: Second Coming, and Catherine in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Works with Prim Everdeen: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay.

Quote Analysis: Umberto Eco's Baudolino

"If you want to to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales, otherwise your History would become monotonous. But you must act with restraint. The world condemns liars who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie only about the greatest things."

Book: Baudolino

Author: Umberto Eco

Translated from Italian by: William Weaver

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2002)

Genre: Literature

Sub-Genres: Fantasy, Frame Story, Hero's Quest, History, Metafiction, Middle Ages, Religious Studies, Unreliable Narrator

Character Speaking: Otto (being told by Baudolino)

Analysis: The thing I love about this quote is just how insanely meta it is.

On the one hand, the quote is spoken by Otto in a conversation with the title character Baudolino. Otto is, in fact, a historian himself, and Baudolino was his student. Baudolino relies this quote to Niketas, in the present, while telling Niketas his own history and life story, all the while admitting that he is a great liar. Otto, too, tells Baudolino, that he is a great liar.

In the end, the listener, Niketas, is so wrapped up in Baudolino's history that no one ends up hearing it again. It is just too fantastical, so that no one would ever believe it. The story ends with, "A greater liar than Baudolino will tell it." Since the book is essentially a frame of Niketas' flee from invaders, you can take the quote as Niketas being the greater storyteller or the author Eco himself.

In other words, this is perhaps Eco's own view on writing: the poets, classically considered the greatest writers, are the best liars. Fiction writers, in fact, are doing just that - they're taking something not true and making it real for the reader. Since the book deals with the fantastical, a large portion of this book could be a thesis on the subject of the willing suspension of disbelief, and how the writer uses that against the reader to make them believe in things like unicorns, vampires, and true love.

But the best part is that it also deals with the narratives inherent even in true things. Otto tells Baudolino that he must make the truth exciting to make a great history. Taken in the context of the modern age (the book was published in 2002), Eco is definitely pointing us towards things like the 24 hour news cycle, where the smallest thing can become a huge story, and the lies Hollywood stars tell us about their lives. Eco is trying to make us question just how much of "the truth" that we hear is actually reality, while pointing out that all stories, especially the good ones, are inherently untrue.

Buy It Here!: Baudolino

PFS Book Review: Umberto Eco's Baudolino

First Line Analysis: Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

Title: Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Authors: Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Publisher: Quirk Books (2009)

Genres: Horror, Humor, Literature, Romance

Sub-Genres: Jane Austen Adapation, Classics, Comedy of Errors, Mash-Ups, Regency Romance 

Character Speaking: Unnamed Narrator

Spoiler Alert!

Analysis: Now, this line is of course a twist on one of the most quoted opening lines of any book, ever (today's First Line Analysis was actually a toss up between the original and Kafka's Metamorphosis but I decided I couldn't handle all that thinking this morning).

Austen's original line read, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." It is considered one of the finest forms of irony ever written, for in fact, it is, of course, a truth universally acknowledged that a single, wealthy man wants nothing more than to screw his brains out. And this is compounded by the fact that when the original line was written, you couldn't ever actually talk about this sort of thing. Thus, Austen's original line is taking a swing straight at her entire society.

In Grahame-Smith's line, we get an entirely similiar but different set-up. Grahame-Smith sets up the book's humor by inverting the classic line with something that is instantly recognizable on two fronts: Austen's quote and the popular belief in zombies screaming "Brains!" and slowly shambling towards their chosen victims. By doing this, he's providing the book's entire tone - which is violent, a bit gross, with tones of humor (mostly ironic), and a cute play off of Austen's original work.

In a way, this is why this book is so smart. Grahame-Smith is twisting the same conventions that Austen used, the sense of funny irony that still delivers a gut punch. Austen wasn't funny without purpose, though, and provided a lot more insight into her culture than Grahame-Smith's zombies can. I do not, however, blame the zombies, as science fiction and fantasy can provide some great insights into the human condition that more literary work cannot (prejudice, especially racism, is actually amazingly covered by fantasy and sci-fi). Instead, I think it's more a facet of Grahame-Smith being a 21st century man, and Austen being a woman of her time.

Austen's job was to take apart her own world, which she seemed to do with zealous glee. Grahame-Smith's job was to entertain, plain and simple. And both succeeded. It is a testament to Grahame-Smith's skill, though, that I bought the book on the first line alone. I read it and knew it was going to be a fun adventure.

As a writer, it's that sort of first line that every book needs and so rarely gets: one that delivers the entire premise and theme of the book, wrapped in a moment that captures the readers' imagination. Insanely difficult to do, but Austen did it here with a line that still speaks to us generations later. All Grahame-Smith had to do was inject his own humor into the line to make a great parody. If that doesn't show the genius of the original line, I don't know what does. 

Buy It Here!: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

Literary Terms: Background Characters

When most people think about background characters, they think about extras in movies. If your scene is taking place in a mall, a busy street, or a restaurant, there's going to be extra characters milling about in the shot but not actually taking part in the action. Those are background characters.

Books, especially in the last few decades as literary and film criticism have collided, also have background characters. In writing, these characters are often described by the narrator or in dialogue, but they speak or directly interact very rarely with the main characters and hardly ever take part in the plot.

These characters are always flat - otherwise they're too important to just be background characters and move closer to being secondary main characters. They can sometimes be plot devices, like when their actions cause our main characters to do something, changing the direction of the plot.

The problem with background characters is that sometimes they become actual, full-blown characters in the plot's structure - even when they shouldn't. A background character should remain just that - on the outside of the plot, away from our main characters. While a background character can return in later parts of a novel to become part of the story, it's got to be because they're supposed to be there and have a narrative purpose. If a character sticks out like a sore thumb as having no purpose in the narrative, you've probably got a background character that is getting too much attention by the writer.

Character Analysis: The Storytelling and Lies of Wuthering Heights' Nelly Dean

Character: Ellen Dean, also known as Nelly or Mrs. Dean

From: Wuthering Heights

Created by: Emily Bronte

Portrayed in Film/TV by: Flora Robson (1939 movie), Christine Lindsay (1948 TV movie), Jean Anderson (1962 TV movie), Anne Stallybrass (1967 TV series), Judy Cornwell (1970 film), Pat Heywood (1978 TV series), Janet McTeer (1992 film), Polly Hemingway (1998 TV movie), Sarah Lancashire (2009 TV series) - pictured at right

Character History: Ellen Dean, commonly called Nelly, was the daughter of a servant at Wuthering Heights, a manor in Yorkshire, English in the nineteenth century, and was raised as a playmate of the manor's owner's children, Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw. Nelly is witness to the orphan Heathcliff's arrival at the manor, Hindley's abuse of the boy after inheriting the estate, and Catherine and Heathcliff falling in love. Becoming of age, Nelly becomes Catherine and Hindley's servant.

Hindley's wife Frances dies of consumption, leading to the rapid deteriotation of Hindley himself and forcing Nelly to become foster parent to Hareton, their young infant son. When Catherine moves to Thrushcross Grange, marrying Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff, Nelly goes with Catherine to Thrushcross. Catherine dies in childbirth, leaving Nelly once again the foster parent, this time to the younger Catherine, named for her now-dead mother.

Nelly remains at Thrushcross Grange long enough to see Healthcliff return and enact his revenge on Hareton and the younger Catherine for their parents' failings. Nelly recounts all this horror to a renter at Thrushcross Grange, Mr. Lockwood, who wants to know the story of the mysterious Heathcliff, his landlord. Heathcliff manages, as the years pass and despite Nelly trying to protect her, to marry the younger Catherine to his own son, Linton, thus giving Heathcliff control of both Thrushcross and Wuthering Heights when Linton dies soon after.

Despite being apparently angry with Heathcliff, Nelly nonetheless returns to Wuthering Heights, the home of her childhood, when Heathcliff asks her to. She eventually finds Heathcliff dead in his own chambers, thus allowing the younger Catherine to marry Hareton, who had fallen in love while both were under Heathcliff's abusive control.

Personality: Above all else, Nelly is a gossip, not afraid of telling stories and injecting herself into everyone else's business. It is unknown, though, how much of a liar Nelly is. Inconsistencies in her story lead many to believe that she has a higher opinion of herself than others do. Nelly is a decent housekeeper and does have a knack for taking care of children, especially those very young. Despite her meddling, she is not a very good manipulator, as things very rarely go her way.

Archetypes: Nelly's main archetype is that of the Unreliable Narrator, wherein the reader is not sure when to trust her story and when to not. She is also The Maid, a common type of gossipy character in books set before the twentieth century. Nelly could also be considered a Plot Device, for though she injects herself into the narrative and crafts the storytelling mode, her character is not central to the plot or character development.

Other Versions: While Nelly has appeared in several adaptions and parodies of Wuthering Heights, her character remains mostly the same. Wuthering Heights has been adapted many times into film and TV programs, operas, plays, musicals, a role-playing game, parodies, and genre-splicers (including the obvious Heathcliff as a vampire). It has also inspired songs.

Main Analysis: Wuthering Heights is known most for its dark hero Heathcliff (or villain, depending on how romantic you think he is), its gothic manors, and its use of the unreliable narrator. It's the character of Nelly Dean, in fact, that transforms this book from a simple tortured romance and revenge drama into a masterpiece.

A brief summary: Mr. Lockwood, who narrates the opening of the book, arrives at Thrushcross Grange and encounters the manor's housekeeper, Nelly. Nelly, bored, a gossip, and starved for attention, decides to tell him all about the manor, its twin manor Wuthering Heights, and their sordid pasts. Nelly interjects herself into the tortured story of Heathcliff, Catherine, and their children, providing both insight and possible lies.

For most scholars, it's Nelly's character that remains the most interesting. Since the story is not told plainly, as Nelly officially interjects her thoughts into the narrative at times and she also unofficially registers her opinions on all matters of her employers' behavior, Nelly's version of the tale can't really be trusted. While she describes herself as being there for most of the major events, whether or she actually was is open for debate, for the majority of the characters she describes, like Catherine herself, are already dead and her stories can't be confirmed.

It's also believed, and supported by the text, that Nelly elevates her status in the story. She believes herself to have been raised as Catherine and her brother's equals, almost like another sister, and does not see herself as Catherine's servant. Instead, Nelly sees herself as Catherine's friend, and even, closest confidant. It's to Nelly that Catherine delivers her rather epic speech about why she must marrry Edgar and not Heathcliff, who she loves. Or, at least, that's the way Nelly tells it.

Some scholars have even go so far as to suggest that Nelly, while she tells Lockwood the tale, is actually recounting her crimes. She, as a master manipulator, is actually the villain of the piece, making sure that she is the one who cares for the children, as much as she's allowed, and in the end, is the surviving parental figure. Through her gossip, it could be easily seen that she helps to promote the strife that causes so many untimely deaths and Nelly does profit from each of these deaths in some way.

But I'm not willing to buy that Nelly Dean is in fact evil. Instead, I'm much willing to suspect that she is a liar and wants to paint herself as the all-knowing and benevolent caretaker. And it's for this reason that not a single thing she tells Mr. Lockwood should be trusted. In the end, that's what makes the unreliable narrator so interesting: what to trust and what not to trust is almost up the reader - just like it is in the real world (see Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby).

In fiction, the idea that a character is telling the truth is almost always taken for granted. In life, however, people lie all the time, for reasons that are so complicated that they can never truly be pulled apart. In a way, Bronte is trying to circumvent the narrative form by detailing an aspect of human nature (gossip, lying, inflating one sense of self) that is all too common but truly difficult to capture in story form, since the reader has been trained to trust what the characters and narrators tell them. In general, when we encounter a liar in fiction, they're either heart of gold scoundrels or the villains.

But Nelly Dean is either. Instead, she's just a maid trying to sell a story to a passerby. There's no evil, though, just a story around a fire meant to entertain. So who knows what's true and what's not? For Nelly (and in general, the reader), it's more about how the story's told.

Similar Characters: Unreliable Narrators: Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby

Gossipy Maids: Dorota from Gossip Girl

Bronte Sister Female Servant Plot Devices: Mrs. Alice Fairfax from Jane Eyre

Works with Nelly Dean: Wuthering Heights (Norton Critical Editions)

Literary Terms: The Inciting Incident

In storytelling, there's a classic narrative structure (a basic example is depicted in the pic to the left). The very first part of that structure is calling the inciting incident (what a wonderful use of assonance, yes?).

The inciting incident is the opening moment of the narrative structure. It should set up the plot, especially the central conflict, and some of the themes.

It does not, however, have to introduce our main characters. The best example of an inciting incident is the opening thirty seconds of any crime show (Law & Order, Bones, and CSI all come to mind), wherein the body is found or the viewer sees the crime happening. Notice that the main characters don't really show up for another thirty seconds.

The inciting incident can be moved around in some narrative structures. In a framed story, for example, where the narrative actually begins at the end, then jumps backwards to the beginning only to work itself back to the end (think Titantic), the inciting incident can either be part of the frame or at the story's beginning. Prologues, too, tend to obscure the inciting incident.

In the best stories or very literary ones, the themes are also present in whatever happens in the inciting incident. In fact, the inciting incident should also give away the ending in some way - it should be both the source of the story's main conflict and a hint for how the conflict will be solved. In this way, deciding what the inciting incident should be very difficult for the writer, especially considering that most stories actually start in media res.

And, to make matters worse, the inciting incident might not always be easily recognized by the reader until the conflict is already in motion. Or, it might even happen off-stage (though very rarely can this pulled off to the readers' satisfaction). But in terms of structure, just remember: the inciting incident is the very beginning of the story's central conflict.

Literary Terms: Critical Reading

I am a person of many hats. On any given day, I freelance as a writer, proofreader, or editor, I teach SAT and GRE prep courses, I teach college courses in English, usually composition, and I write for this blog. I also work on my own writing, the novel that was my master's thesis.

I've worked in the publishing industry for several years now. I have two degrees in literature and writing: a bachelor of arts degree in English with a creative writing emphasis from Butler University and a master of professional writing with a fiction concentration from USC. I teach literature as part of my composition classes.

A few months ago, a commentor on this website left a rather nasty comment on my Character Analysis of Eowyn, one of the few female characters in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The commentor didn't like my opinion that Tolkien has a lack of developed female characters. I could have deleted the comment, since it was mostly ranting and mean, but decided against it. I do believe in free speech, after all, and the comment itself doesn't bother me. It's the fact that the commentor asks why I think my ideas are so important that I should publish them and think people care.

Well, I didn't realize people care about my blog here (it's nice to know some do, apparently). But given my business experience and academic training, well, I have to say there's no one really more qualified to give an armchair critical analysis than me. But I don't do this blog for that - I just do it to start a discussion that leads to critical reading.

Critical reading is the act in which the reader looks past the surface of a novel or other written work to uncover the themes, symbolisms, structures, and other narrative tools that the author has included in the work and how that work compares to others in literary history. Often, readers have two modes: one for enjoyment and quick reading and the other for critical reading, where they take notes, highlight passages, and prepare themselves to write a paper.

Critical reading is an important skill for all readers to learn, but few do. Most readers read for the pure enjoyment of it, and while the two are not incompatible, they do have separate end goals. The reader for enjoyment could sustain a brief intellectual discussion on the book, but only a critical reading is going to give the reader the ability to discern the work's underlying structure and the ability to answer more complex questions.

Critical reading is learned by not only the act of reading, but by engaging in discussions with other readers about the book itself and how the book relates to other books. Even publishing professionals work with a different type of critical reading: they are looking for how this book can make money and how they can market it. While this is a type of critical reading, it's not really the point of a narrative.

To work on your own critical reading skills,  join a book club, whether in person or online, and try your hand at some of the things I do here: analyze a character or quote. Ask yourself why these characters or lines speak to you, what does the author want you to see from them, and how do they compare to other books or characters you've read. These questions lead to critical reading and analysis. And hopefully, you'll start to get even more from a book then you were before.