Opiniatrety

Which Characters Deserved It?

[UPDATE: Hey, thanks for the boost, Ogged!]

Over at Unfogged we were discussing Robertson Davies, and I complained that in World of Wonders Davies really set one character up for humiliation, and this device bugged me. (I had to have my memory refreshed on the details; it's been about ten years since I read it.)

baa responded:

while I am never a fan of the obvious author set up of the hateful character, this one didn't offend me much.
And now that I think of it, the authorial set ups of a horrible character can be really enjoyable. Sack Lodge in "Wedding Crashers" comes to mind as a recent example. I wonder if can think of examples of this from "high literature." (perhaps the argument is: what makes high literature high is that it avoids crowd-pleasing simplifications like the completely hateful character, but that doesn't seem like it can be right...).

I think that's a great idea! Can anyone think of cases where an author really sets up a character for humiliation, and it's great because the character deserves it? Leave your nominees, pref. with spoiler warnings where appropriate. I have a couple below the fold.

Perhaps something like the fate of Lorcan Larkin in Marian Keyes' Last Chance Saloon, though I fear Keyes does not count as 'high literature' for our purposes. Or there's a supberb one in Kingsley Amis's The Green Man--click this link for a spoiler. And I might count the abuse of Oswald in King Lear:

KENT Fellow, I know thee.

OSWALD
What dost thou know me for?

KENT
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.

Maybe I'll change the name of the blog to "clamorous whining."