A Critical-Theoretical Evaluation of Literary Characters

"To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world."

From Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Introduction

To evaluate and rank literary characters based on their "morals and flaws" requires us to abandon the simplistic binaries of good and evil. As a literary scholar, and speaking as Rajdeep Bavaliya, my engagement with cultural studies, postcolonial theory, and absurdism has taught me that a character's morality is inextricably bound to the ideological state apparatuses and power structures they inhabit. A character is not merely a person on a page; they are a site of historical, political, and ontological contestation. Therefore, the "best" characters are those whose deep moral ambiguities, tragic flaws, and profound psychological complexities serve as the ultimate x-ray of human society.

In approaching this extensive list of canonical and contemporary texts, I have deliberately excluded works that function primarily as non-fiction theoretical texts (such as Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth) or fragmented poetic landscapes devoid of traditional character arcs (like Eliot’s The Waste Land). Instead, I have curated and ranked the top twenty characters from the remaining narratives. These characters are evaluated on their capacity to expose hegemony, navigate the absurdity of existence, and endure the violent intersections of class, gender, and coloniality.

1. The Vanguard of Decoloniality and the Margins (Ranks 1 to 5)

The highest echelons of literary characterization belong to those who exist in the margins, challenging the absolute core of systemic oppression and embodying the complex morality of survival.

1.1. First: Anjum (The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy)

Anjum claims the first position because her existence is a radical act of defiance against a hyper-nationalist, binary-obsessed state. Born Aftab, Anjum’s transition to her true gender identity, her survival of the Gujarat riots, and her eventual creation of a sanctuary in a graveyard represent the ultimate intersection of marginalized grief and resilience. Her morality is not dictated by societal norms but by a profound, fiercely protective empathy for the discarded. She literally builds life upon death, exposing the violent exclusionary politics of the modern nation-state.

1.2. Second: Antoinette Cosway (Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys)

Ranking second, Antoinette is the ultimate decolonial reclamation. Rhys rescues the "madwoman in the attic" from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and grants her a devastatingly complex psychology. Antoinette’s tragic flaw is her vulnerability to a colonial, patriarchal system that strips her of her wealth, her homeland (Jamaica), her name, and ultimately her sanity. Her fiery end is re-contextualized not as the act of a monster, but as a colonized woman’s final, desperate reclamation of agency.

1.3. Third: The Monster (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

The Monster is perhaps the most misunderstood character in literature, perfectly reflecting the tragic consequences of societal prejudice. Initially a blank slate with a gentle disposition, his moral decay is a direct reaction to the abhorrence he faces due to his physical appearance. He ranks third because his eloquence and agonizing existential isolation challenge the reader to question who the true monster is—the creation or the society that rejects him.

1.4. Fourth: Saleem Sinai (Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie)

Saleem’s life is handcuffed to the birth of post-independence India. His morality and his physical deterioration mirror the fragmentation, hope, and eventual corruption of the newly formed nation. He ranks fourth because his unreliability as a narrator and his desperate need to impose meaning on chaos perfectly encapsulate the postcolonial identity crisis.

1.5. Fifth: Nnu Ego (The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta)

Nnu Ego represents the devastating double-bind of colonial capitalism and traditional patriarchy. Her moral compass is entirely consumed by the societal mandate that a woman’s worth is tied to producing male heirs. Her tragic flaw is her blind adherence to this tradition, which ultimately leads to her dying alone by the roadside, exposing the hollow, exploitative nature of the "joys" she was promised.

2. Authoritarianism, Hubris, and the Surveillance State (Ranks 6 to 10)

These characters expose the psychological mechanisms of totalitarian control, demonstrating how the thirst for absolute power corrupts the individual soul.

2.1. Sixth: Winston Smith (Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell)

Winston’s flawed morality is a testament to the crushing weight of the Panopticon. He is not a traditional hero; his rebellion is fueled as much by visceral hatred as it is by a desire for truth. He ranks sixth because his ultimate betrayal of Julia in Room 101 demonstrates the terrifying reality that the state can dismantle not just the body, but the core of human love and loyalty.

2.2. Seventh: Lady Macbeth (Macbeth by William Shakespeare)

Lady Macbeth subverts early modern gender expectations, famously asking spirits to "unsex" her to achieve the cruelty necessary for political usurpation. Her tragic flaw is her underestimation of the psychological toll of murder. Her descent into madness, endlessly washing invisible blood from her hands, is a masterclass in the inescapable nature of moral guilt.

2.3. Eighth: Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

Victor embodies the hubris of the Enlightenment and the dangerous lack of ethical foresight in scientific pursuit—themes highly relevant to contemporary critiques of Artificial Intelligence. His moral failure is not in creating life, but in abandoning his creation out of aesthetic disgust. He is the architect of his own destruction, unable to take responsibility for his actions.

2.4. Ninth: Macbeth (Macbeth by William Shakespeare)

Unlike his wife, Macbeth is plagued by moral hesitation from the beginning. His journey from a loyal, honorable soldier to a blood-soaked tyrant is driven by unchecked ambition and a fatalistic reliance on prophecy. He ranks ninth for his profound, existential realization at the end of the play that his bloody actions have rendered his life a tale "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

2.5. Tenth: Masuji Ono (An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro)

Masuji Ono’s flaw is the subtlety of self-deception. An aging painter in post-WWII Japan, his morality is clouded by his past support of Japanese imperialism. Ishiguro brilliantly constructs Ono as an unreliable narrator whose gentle, polite demeanor masks a deep, unresolved guilt. He reflects how individuals rationalize their complicity in historical atrocities.

3. Existentialism, Class, and Psychological Determinism (Ranks 11 to 15)

This group represents the struggle against invisible forces—be it the absurdity of the universe, the rigid structures of the class system, or the inescapable gravity of trauma.

3.1. Eleventh: Vladimir (Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett)

Through my engagement with absurdist philosophy, Vladimir emerges as a profound figure of existential endurance. Unlike Estragon, who forgets, Vladimir remembers. He is aware of the cyclical, meaningless nature of their waiting, yet he chooses to persist. His moral strength lies in his refusal to commit philosophical suicide, embracing the absurdity of life while clinging to the fragmented camaraderie he shares with Estragon.

3.2. Twelfth: Jude Fawley (Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy)

Jude’s morality is earnest, yet his fatal flaw is his naive belief in the meritocracy of Victorian society. His relentless pursuit of academic study at "Christminster" is continuously crushed by the brutal realities of his working-class status. Jude’s life exposes the systemic violence that prevents social mobility, making him a tragic martyr of class warfare.

3.3. Thirteenth: Mary Tyrone (Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill)

Mary’s tragic flaw is her inability to escape the past. Her morphine addiction is a coping mechanism for the deep-seated grief of losing a child and the disillusionment of her marriage. She is a haunting study of psychological determinism; she is not a bad person, but a victim of circumstances and profound isolation who retreats into the fog of her own mind.

3.4. Fourteenth: Sue Bridehead (Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy)

Sue is a tragically ahead-of-her-time intellect. She critiques the institution of marriage and religious dogma with sharp clarity. However, her flaw is her eventual psychological collapse under the sheer weight of societal condemnation. After a horrific family tragedy, her radical intellect shatters, and she forces herself into a punitive, loveless marriage, demonstrating how patriarchal society crushes intellectual women.

3.5. Fifteenth: Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Gatsby’s morality is entirely constructed around a singular, unattainable illusion: recreating the past to win Daisy Buchanan. He is a bootlegger and a fraud, yet he possesses an "extraordinary gift for hope." His tragic flaw is his inability to see that the American Dream he pursues is as hollow and corrupt as the elite society that ultimately discards him.

4. Gender, Identity, and Neoliberal Anxieties (Ranks 16 to 20)

The final tier explores characters who navigate the confines of gender performativity, colonial authorship, and modern capitalist aspirations.

4.1. Sixteenth: Orlando (Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf)

Orlando ranks sixteenth for being a foundational figure in queer theory. Living for centuries and changing gender halfway through the narrative, Orlando’s morality is untethered from rigid societal expectations. The character exposes gender as a performative construct, demonstrating that the human soul is fluid and irreducible to biological determinism.

4.2. Seventeenth: Bimala (The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore)

Bimala is caught between the progressive, humanistic ideals of her husband Nikhil and the aggressive, charismatic nationalism of Sandip. Her moral struggle is a brilliant allegory for India’s own ideological battle during the Swadeshi movement. Her flaw is her initial seduction by the intoxicating, violent rhetoric of nationalism, before a tragic awakening to its destructive reality.

4.3. Eighteenth: Susan Barton (Foe by J.M. Coetzee)

Susan Barton is a complex exploration of authorship and truth. Washed ashore on Cruso's island, she eventually returns to England and tries to get an author (Foe) to tell her story. Her morality is compromised by her desperate need to control the narrative, particularly her failure to truly understand Friday, the mutilated, silenced slave. She represents the colonial impulse to speak for the subaltern rather than letting them speak.

4.4. Nineteenth: Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

Elizabeth Bennet is celebrated for her wit and independence, but her true depth lies in her confrontation with her own titular prejudice. Her moral growth occurs when she realizes that her initial judgments were clouded by pride. Furthermore, her character highlights the systemic vulnerability of women in the 19th century, where economic security was violently tied to the marriage market.

4.5. Twentieth: Gopal (Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat)

While Chetan Bhagat’s work may lack the theoretical density of a Woolf or a Shakespeare, Gopal represents a very specific, hyper-relevant contemporary reality. Gopal embodies the fierce neoliberal aspirations, deep-seated corruption, and intense academic anxiety of modern Indian youth. His moral compromises—building a corrupt educational empire out of jealousy and a desperate need for validation—provide a stark, realistic look at how the capitalist machinery warps the ethical framework of the younger generation.

Conclusion

In ranking these twenty characters, from the defiant margins occupied by Anjum to the corrupt, modern ambitions of Gopal, we traverse the entire spectrum of human ideology. These characters do not exist to provide us with simple moral parables. Instead, they act as mirrors reflecting the violence of history, the surveillance of the state, the absurdity of existence, and the resilience of the human spirit. Returning to Salman Rushdie's quote, to understand these characters is to swallow the world—to consume its history, its politics, and its pain. As an academic, analyzing these characters reinforces the profound realization that literature is our most potent tool for developing a critical historical sense and cultivating deep, radical empathy.