Macbeth
Thane of Glamis, then king
- Wants
- To be what the prophecy promised, without having to become it.
- Undone by
- He cannot distinguish wanting a thing from being fated to have it.
The Character AtlasEverybody
Everybody
wants something.
A character is a want plus a habit that gets in the way of it. Search by name, work or flaw — or start with a theme and watch the same appetite appear in different centuries.
64 characters
Lady Macbeth
His wife, and the plan's author
- Wants
- For her husband to take what she believes he deserves.
- Undone by
- She mistakes resolve for capacity: she can plan a murder but not live beside one.
Hamlet
Prince of Denmark, and a son in mourning
- Wants
- To know something true before acting, in a court built on appearances.
- Undone by
- He thinks thinking is a form of action, which lets him postpone both.
Claudius
King, by marriage and murder
- Wants
- To keep what he took, and to be forgiven for how he took it.
- Undone by
- He wants the crown and a clean conscience, which is one wish too many.
Victor Frankenstein
Student of natural philosophy, and a maker
- Wants
- To discover something no one else has, and be thanked for it.
- Undone by
- He never once imagines the creature as a person with a claim on him.
The Creature
Made, then abandoned
- Wants
- To be spoken to, and then to be given a life worth speaking in.
- Undone by
- He learns that violence gets a response when language does not.
Jay Gatsby
Host, self-invented millionaire
- Wants
- Daisy, and the five years he intends to undo in order to have her.
- Undone by
- He believes the past is a place you can buy a ticket back to.
Daisy Buchanan
Old money, married into it
- Wants
- Comfort and the appearance of never having chosen.
- Undone by
- She prefers a version of events she can survive without being blamed.
Tom Buchanan
Heir, husband, bully
- Wants
- To keep every arrangement exactly as it is.
- Undone by
- He has never had to be interesting, because he has never had to compete.
Jane Eyre
Governess, then heir
- Wants
- To be treated as a person of equal standing, on her own terms.
- Undone by
- She would rather leave than be loved on unequal terms.
Edward Rochester
Landowner, and a man with a secret
- Wants
- A companion who can meet him as an equal, and a life that does not require explanation.
- Undone by
- He tries to secure honesty by deception.
Bertha Mason
The first Mrs Rochester, kept out of sight
- Wants
- To be heard in a house where she has been made into a noise.
- Undone by
- Her only available language is violence, because every other language was taken.
Elizabeth Bennet
Second daughter, with no inheritance
- Wants
- To judge clearly, and to be judged fairly.
- Undone by
- She confuses confidence in her reading of people with accuracy.
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Landowner
- Wants
- To be understood without having to explain himself.
- Undone by
- He assumes his position will do the explaining.
Heathcliff
Foundling, then owner of both houses
- Wants
- Catherine, in a sense that has no equivalent in ordinary language.
- Undone by
- He converts grief into a system of inherited cruelty.
Catherine Earnshaw
Daughter of the Heights, then mistress of the Grange
- Wants
- To be respectable and to remain herself — two things the novel will not allow together.
- Undone by
- She believes she can choose a marriage without choosing a self.
King Lear
King, abdicating
- Wants
- To be loved in proportion to what he is giving away.
- Undone by
- He keeps the title and expects the obedience, without the power that made either work.
Cordelia
Youngest daughter
- Wants
- To love her father without turning it into a performance.
- Undone by
- She cannot flatter, which in a court is a defect.
Othello
General, a Moor in Venice
- Wants
- To be certain of the one thing he believes he earned.
- Undone by
- He trusts the story of himself as a soldier more than the evidence of his marriage.
Iago
Ensign, and the play's engineer
- Wants
- To be promoted, or failing that, to make everyone else pay.
- Undone by
- He calls his motive a grievance because he does not want to look at the real one.
Puck
Fairy, and Oberon's agent
- Wants
- To enjoy the chaos he is asked to create.
- Undone by
- He is confident and careless, which is a dangerous combination with magic.
Bottom
Weaver, and the play's worst actor
- Wants
- To be admired for a performance nobody asked for.
- Undone by
- He has no idea how ridiculous he is, which is exactly why he survives being enchanted.
Prospero
Duke in exile, and a magician
- Wants
- To correct an old injustice and secure his daughter's future.
- Undone by
- He arranges everyone else's choices so carefully that he forgets to ask what they want.
Caliban
Inhabitant of the island, enslaved
- Wants
- To be left alone on the island he says is his.
- Undone by
- He has learned only the language that curses, because that is the language he was taught.
Dorothea Brooke
Orphan with ideals and a small income
- Wants
- To do something large with her life, through someone she believes is large.
- Undone by
- She confuses intellectual seriousness with moral worth.
Tertius Lydgate
New doctor with a reform plan
- Wants
- To make medicine scientific, in a town that prefers the old ways.
- Undone by
- He cannot resist small comforts, and small comforts become large debts.
Rosamond Vincy
Mayor's daughter, trained to be attractive
- Wants
- The best available marriage, and a life arranged like a drawing room.
- Undone by
- She treats other people's decisions as weather to be managed.
Raskolnikov
Student, in debt and in theory
- Wants
- To prove that some people are permitted things ordinary people are not.
- Undone by
- He has built a theory that requires him to be exceptional, and the murder is only the exam.
Sonya Marmeladova
Daughter of a drunkard, and a religious reader
- Wants
- To keep her family alive, and to keep believing that people can be returned to themselves.
- Undone by
- She gives away more than she can spare.
Ivan Karamazov
Intellectual son
- Wants
- To hold a moral position that does not require God to exist.
- Undone by
- He argues with such brilliance that he cannot stop, even when the argument turns on him.
Alyosha Karamazov
Novice monk, youngest son
- Wants
- To be present to people without needing a theory for them.
- Undone by
- He trusts others too easily to warn them in time.
Anna Karenina
Society wife who becomes an outsider
- Wants
- To be loved in public as she believes she is loved privately.
- Undone by
- She needs the world to admit something it will never admit, and that need becomes the measure of everything.
Alexei Vronsky
Officer, from a wealthy family
- Wants
- A life that feels like a choice rather than an inheritance.
- Undone by
- He can want something completely and still not think about it.
Count Dracula
Undead aristocrat with a plan
- Wants
- To take London's blood, one move at a time.
- Undone by
- He is defeated by the one thing he cannot do: stop needing to sleep somewhere known.
Mina Harker
Teacher, and the group's memory
- Wants
- To keep everyone's accounts straight, and to survive her own connection to the count.
- Undone by
- She blames herself for evidence she did not invent.
Dorian Gray
Heir, beauty, and a sitter
- Wants
- To keep his face and his freedom at the same time.
- Undone by
- He treats consequences as something that happens to somebody else — the portrait, for instance.
Lord Henry Wotton
Epigrammatist and social theorist
- Wants
- To watch his ideas take shape in somebody else's life.
- Undone by
- He never tests his theories on his own life.
Kurtz
Ivory agent, and the object of the journey
- Wants
- To be a beacon of good work in a place he can dominate.
- Undone by
- He confuses his own appetite with purpose.
Marlow
Sailor, and narrator
- Wants
- To reach Kurtz, and to understand what he has found.
- Undone by
- He keeps narrating at a distance, as if reporting could keep him clean.
Edmund
Bastard son, and the play's strategist
- Wants
- To take by wit what birth would not give him.
- Undone by
- He believes a plan is the same thing as a right.
Winston Smith
Clerk, revising the past
- Wants
- To keep a private memory of what actually happened.
- Undone by
- He believes a personal truth can survive without anyone else to confirm it.
Julia
Rebel, in the only way still available
- Wants
- To keep a small private life the state cannot see.
- Undone by
- She has no interest in the larger truth, which is both her strength and her limit.
O'Brien
Inner Party official
- Wants
- To make power total, and to be loved for making it total.
- Undone by
- He wants to be understood — which is a weakness in an interrogator.
Offred
Handmaid, and narrator
- Wants
- To survive long enough to leave, and to remember who she was.
- Undone by
- She is honest about her compromises, which makes her hard to judge comfortably.
Serena Joy
Commander's wife, and a former believer
- Wants
- The child that would make her position mean something.
- Undone by
- She helped build the world that has made her powerless.
Atticus Finch
Lawyer, and father
- Wants
- To defend a man properly in a town that has already decided.
- Undone by
- He trusts the institution he is defending to outlast the prejudice inside it.
Boo Radley
Recluse, and the plot's quiet agent
- Wants
- To be left alone, and to protect the children who never stopped treating him as a person.
- Undone by
- He lives inside other people's stories, which keeps him safe and silent.
Sethe
Escaped slave, and mother
- Wants
- To keep her children where no one can take them.
- Undone by
- She loves at an intensity that has already cost her everything.
Beloved
A presence, wearing a name
- Wants
- To be claimed, and to be told why she was not.
- Undone by
- She has no way to ask except by taking up all the space.
Edmond Dantès
Sailor, prisoner, then Count
- Wants
- To repay four men exactly what they took from him.
- Undone by
- He begins to enjoy the arithmetic of revenge a little too much.
Fernand Mondego
Soldier, then nobleman
- Wants
- Mercédès, by whatever means gets him there.
- Undone by
- He builds a public reputation he cannot afford to have examined.
Gregor Samsa
Travelling salesman, now an insect
- Wants
- To be of use to his family, which is the only way he knows to be loved.
- Undone by
- He apologises for his own catastrophe.
Grete Samsa
Younger sister and musician
- Wants
- To make a life for herself while keeping the household running.
- Undone by
- She becomes competent at the expense of the person she is caring for.
Odysseus
Wandering king
- Wants
- To get home, and to be the one who tells the story of getting there.
- Undone by
- He cannot resist an opportunity to be clever in front of an audience.
Penelope
Queen, waiting
- Wants
- To keep her household intact until she is certain there is someone to keep it for.
- Undone by
- She has turned delay into a system, and systems can outlast their purpose.
Antoinette Cosway
Creole heiress, alone in the world
- Wants
- To be wanted without being bought, and to keep the island she belongs to.
- Undone by
- She loves where the transaction is, before the terms are clear.
Christophine
Servant, and the island's authority
- Wants
- To keep the child she raised from being destroyed by people who know nothing.
- Undone by
- She is not heeded in the one moment when it matters.
Henry Jekyll
Doctor, and respectable man of science
- Wants
- To be both a good man and a free one, without having to choose.
- Undone by
- He separates himself rather than integrating what he is.
Gabriel Utterson
Lawyer, and the novel's detective
- Wants
- To protect his friend's reputation without asking him what he is doing.
- Undone by
- He respects discretion so much that he stops asking questions.
Ralph
Elected leader
- Wants
- To keep the signal fire alight and the group governed by agreement.
- Undone by
- He trusts that everyone else wants the same thing he wants.
Jack Merridew
Choir leader, then chief
- Wants
- To be looked at, and to be obeyed.
- Undone by
- He treats fear as an opportunity rather than a problem.
Tess Durbeyfield
Country girl, and a family's unlucky heir
- Wants
- To be judged by what she intended rather than by what happened to her.
- Undone by
- She blames herself with the exact vocabulary the world has taught her.
Angel Clare
Clergyman's son, and a free thinker
- Wants
- A farming life built on honest work and modern ideas.
- Undone by
- His free thought has never been tested against his own desire.
Miss Havisham
Jilted heiress, and Satis House's keeper
- Wants
- To keep the moment of betrayal alive rather than survive it.
- Undone by
- She turns a wound into a curriculum.