A Collection of Cowardly Characters

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U.S. Senator John McCain occasionally talks humanely and “maverick-y.” But the Arizona Republican, until July 28, almost always voted with far-right members of his party — including worst-human-being-on-the-planet Donald Trump. So the words of war hero McCain (who bravely refused release from a Vietnam prison when fellow POWs without influential fathers didn’t get the same offer) are usually worthless.

Well, maybe not totally worthless — when it comes to spurring blog ideas. I began writing this post after the brain-cancer-stricken McCain returned to Washington, DC, on July 25 to mouth platitudes about bipartisanship while capitulating to Republican pressure to allow the Senate to discuss repealing Obamacare and replace it with some awful Trumpcare version that would kick millions off health insurance — of which McCain enjoys a fancy government version.

My blog idea? Literature’s cowards — some of whom redeem themselves and some of whom don’t. From McCain’s political track record, I thought he’d remain in the non-redeem group, but he thrillingly voted July 28 to save Obamacare (for the time being).

Actually, Trumpcare-resisting American citizens (MANY of them women), Democratic senators (some of them women), and Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine deserve even more of the credit for saving Obamacare (which is not as good as single payer, yet infinitely better than what the GOP tried to replace it with). But McCain received more kudos and media attention — as is often the case with men.  😦

Anyway, back to cowardice in literature. Perhaps the most famous example is Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, in which a scared soldier deserts his regiment but later has an opportunity to act differently. Also well known is Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, about a sailor who abandons a sinking ship and then wrestles with his guilt for a long time.

Then there are the many villains in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels who act ultra-tough until Jack turns the tables on them. A few take their punishment courageously, but many become weak-kneed wimps when getting a taste of their own medicine.

In Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, the men who framed the innocent Edmond Dantes also become quite fearful when revenge is about to be exacted.

In some versions of the Robin Hood tales, the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham is a coward, too.

Celebrity professor Gilderoy Lockhart of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets built a reputation as a hero, but was actually a gutless guy who had other people do “his” brave acts and then wiped their memories. In J.K. Rowling’s book, Harry and Hermione and Ron show a lot more courage than Lockhart despite being 12-year-old kids.

Of course, a fictional character can also act cowardly in situations other than being in potential physical danger. For instance, the wealthy Godfrey Cass of George Eliot’s Silas Marner is too chicken for years to acknowledge that the “lower-born” Molly Farren is his secret wife and that Eppie (who will do so much to turn around Marner’s life) is his biological daughter. But Cass does have some moments of acting decently.

Arthur Dimmesdale of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a sympathetic character in certain ways yet shows no spine when keeping secret the affair he had with Hester Prynne, who bears the brunt of becoming an outcast in her narrow-minded community.

Newland Archer of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence could be considered cowardly (or maybe just loyal) when he reluctantly goes through with marriage to the bland May Welland rather than trying to make a life with the unconventional Countess Ellen Olenska — the woman with whom Newland is intrigued and enamored.

Oh, and then there’s the Cowardly Lion in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Who are some of the cowardly or part-cowardly characters you’ve found most memorable?

My 2017 literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com. The latest weekly piece, featuring fake histories of street names, is here.

52 thoughts on “A Collection of Cowardly Characters”

  1. From the Italian commedia dell’arte comes a stock character whose name in Italian means “little skirmisher”. He’s an untrustworthy servant who burlesques the don “and is characterized by boastfulness and cowardliness”. He is also defined as “a cowardly buffoon.” But like us all, he is but mortal, and struts and frets his hour upon the stage before the curtain closes down.

    In the most recent manifestation, his hour lasted 10 crazy daze, but he identified himself as himself from the play’s first act, thus saving observers from the pains of investigation as to his true identity and nature, though there was a bit of a spelling variant to overcome: Scaramouch, or as he would have it, Scaramucci.

    As he is of small stature, it is tempting to refer to him as Little Anthony, but his association is with the Imperial Presidency and not The Imperials. Still, as a theme song for the debacle, Little Anthony’s “Think I’m Going Out of My Head” is a strong contender. For the death of the democracy I root for “Tears on My Pillow”. But that’s just me.

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  2. Well, I guess you’d know that I had to chime in here, especially about the Vietnam War and what happened to my brother, most of which I’ve mentioned many times. However, the two things that struck me when reading both your comments was that he was asked by a judge if he would have felt the same way about serving in WWII, to which my brother replied that he didn’t know since he didn’t live in those times; and second, the Asst. DA at that time urged my brother to go to Canada, and he said that no, he knew he was breaking the law and he’d accept his punishment. I’m not sure that I’d be that brave.

    I was just in a discussion the other day about what it must be like for those who are called on to participate in The Charge of the Light Brigade, or Pickett’s Charge or even D-Day, when you must know that you are most likely going to die, but you still do it, or are people thinking that they will be the survivors of such a military command decision?

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      • Glad your reply posted, Kat Lib. Thanks! I do remember you describing your brother’s situation, and he was VERY brave indeed.

        World War II was of course a necessary war and (after Pearl Harbor) also a self-defensive war. Unlike the Vietnam War, which was tragically pointless. But, either way, as you allude to, it has to be terrifying for people to be ordered into a battle in which the odds of losing their lives are high. Hard to imagine unless one has experienced it.

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      • As you have read, I got lucky in the draft lottery, so I did not have to test myself or my beliefs over-hard. I knew if I had been drafted I was more likely to go than refuse, but I also knew my country’s participation in the war was wrong, and therefore that no target in Vietnam was legitimate for us. I had every confidence that if I were shot at, I’d be more inclined to shoot back than not– that’s why I was certain I had no business in the fight: there were no legitimate targets there for us. Muddled and circular? Yep. It was pure luck and nothing else that kept me from having to sort things out any better.

        I knew a resister or two in my time, and I knew, after a while, several returning vets. The war marked them all, one way or another. The resisters seemed to have a better time– a much better time– accepting themselves and the things they’d done.

        The brave honesty of your brother is real, and no small thing. As you put it, “I’m not sure I would have been so brave.” But I hope I might have been.

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        • jhNY and Dave, thank you for your responses to my comment, and I know that there were not, nor are there any easy answers to what went on then. I’ve not heard or read anything from this administration that makes me feel any better about our standing in the world today, except it may be even worse, if that’s possible!

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  3. “A Fire At Sea” by Ivan Turgenev is a short story based on an experience the author had undergone as a student on his way to university: the steamship on which he was traveling burned.
    http://www.unz.org/Pub/Reporter-1958feb20-00031

    From the website Dispatches from Zembla:

    ‘Isaiah Berlin, in the introduction to the piece that Turgenev wrote about the incident when he was on his Death-bed, writes:

    “According to the stories that circulated in Moscow and St. Petersburg he had completely lost his head, loudly lamented his approaching end, tried to push his way into the lifeboat, brutally shoving aside women and children, and finally, in full sight of the entire company, seized a sailor by the arm and offered him ten thousand roubles in his mother’s name if he would save him, saying that he was the only son of a rich widow and could not bear to die so young”.

    The stories proved to be a ripe source of fiction for another author: rival Fyodor Dostoevsky. Here’s ‘Alok’, the writer of the entry above on Dispatches from Zembla:

    ‘One of the many hilarious parts (in an otherwise extremely dark novel) Dostoevsky’s The Possessed is the satirical caricature of the character Karmazinov. Dostoevsky portrays him as a self-obsessed and pompous narcissist, given to naive and affected poetry and delusions of grandeur. Here’s one example where the narrator discusses an article of his:

    “A year before, I had read an article of his in a review, written with an immense affectation of naive poetry, and psychology too. He described the wreck of some steamer on the English coast, of which he had been the witness, and how he had seen the drowning people saved, and the dead bodies brought ashore. All this rather long and verbose article was written solely with the object of self-display. One seemed to read between the lines: “Concentrate yourselves on me. Behold what I was like at those moments. What are the sea, the storm, the rocks, the splinters of wrecked ships to you? I have described all that sufficiently to you with my mighty pen. Why look at that drowned woman with the dead child in her dead arms? Look rather at me, see how I was unable to bear that sight and turned away from it. Here I stood with my back to it; here I was horrified and could not bring myself to look; I blinked my eyes—isn’t that interesting?””

    The Possessed was written in 1871-72. Turgenev’s story, if written on his deathbed, could have been written no later than 1882-83. I cannot locate a publishing date beyond the Isaiah Berlin translation, which appears to have come out in 1957.

    Another interweb source mentions A Fire At Sea was dictated, not written, and in French, not Russian.

    The vivid descriptions of the fire, the various characters who pop in and out of the billowing smoke, etc., do a little, but not enough to distract attentive readers from the underlying organizing principle of the story: great shame, carried inside for years.

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    • Thanks, jhNY! I had heard about Turgenev’s reaction in that boat, but never read a biography of that author, so I appreciate you fleshing things out in your great comment. Who knows how any of us would have reacted in a situation like that, but Turgenev did not acquit himself well. The shame he felt — and tried to deal with in that late-in-life short story — reminds me a bit of the protagonist in Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” who wreaked havoc on two lives and then thought she was doing something useful by turning the whole thing into a fictional work. Maybe useful to her, but to no one else…

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      • “Who knows how any of us would have reacted in a situation like that..”

        I feel that most of us are built mostly for our own times and places. It’s really unknown country– other times, other places– though we have literature to guide us among many of the unfamiliar parts. I have behaved pretty well in the few emergencies with which I was confronted over the years, but all these involved danger to other people, whom I was able, and quickly, to help, but as there was no real danger to myself, I can honestly say: I can’t be sure.

        My family background would place me, for hundreds of years, among a scruffy bunch of minor gentry sorts in Spain, right next to Basque country (my real last name derives from the Basque). Would I have acquitted myself honorably in a sword fight? In a pitched battle at close range? Later in historical time, under constant artillery bombardment and/or a literal hail of bullets? I suspect nope, but I am grateful not to have been tested, thanks to being from my particular time and place, where and when one day in 1969, a very high draft lottery number sprung me from what would likely have been my closest brush with the answer.

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        • Thoughtful reply, jhNY. I agree that one often doesn’t know how one will react until the situation happens.

          There was once a fire in the lounge of my college dorm, and I acquitted myself well with a fire extinguisher. Another time, in the 1980s, I witnessed someone being robbed of her handbag by gunpoint (I think) in NYC, and kept my distance. During the Vietnam War a few years after your draft-lottery experience, I unfortunately had a very low draft number (three, I think) and would have had an interesting decision to make if the war hadn’t ended.

          Then of course there are decisions one makes that don’t put one in physical harm but could, say, cost one their job. I pushed back against my problematic editor during the later years of working on a magazine in NYC, and did get laid off. Partly for economic reasons (the crash of 2008), but several other employees who didn’t call out the editor lasted a couple more years.

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          • I’ve done similar things– put out a fire,pulled a window washer in before he fell 8 stories, hauled people out of cars after a wreck– maybe the fire thing was a bit bravish, but I basically crawled under a pall of smoke till I found the burning apartment, saw a bucket under a sink and it was over.

            I suspect none of this prepared me for anything like swordfights or guns firing at me.

            As for that pushback, been there and sometimes so as to save a job that was not my own, for which managers have but seldom been grateful or even gracious. I guess I was occupying the moral highground, such as it was, if on feet of clay.

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            • You’ve done VERY well, jhNY. And, yes, the sword or gun thing is a whole other level.

              As for managers being seldom grateful, it often seems to go with the territory. If they had the grateful gene, they’d probably never get promoted to manager — perceived as not tough enough or some such nonsense.

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  4. I wonder what Edith Wharton’s intention was with Newland Archer, given that his act of courage is to refuse to see Ellen Olenska when it can’t make much difference. Meanwhile, she has him maunder over expectations of his class, yet gives examples, such as the social butterfly Lefferts and the banker Beaufort, who flout the rules and still float to the top. Beaufort doesn’t suffer much, for being forced to leave America. Lefferts receives no comeuppance at all. All this makes something of a mockery of Archer’s standards.

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    • Thank you for the excellent, very interesting comment, ractrose!

      Yes, Newland was at least partly courageous and ethical in his way — even in a world (then and now) where unethical people constantly got/get ahead, as you observed.

      If the first line of your comment is referring to the end of “The Age of Innocence,” (spoiler alert coming for those who haven’t read Edith Wharton’s novel) when Newland declines to see Ellen in Paris, I’ve puzzled over that. They could have potentially/belatedly become a couple then (they were both unattached) and perhaps had a happier later-in-life life. I’m not sure why Newland didn’t take that chance.

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      • Dave, I know we’ve talked about this before, but agree that I don’t understand why he didn’t go meet with Olenska and perhaps have a relationship with her after May died. It didn’t make sense when I read the book, and I suppose I should be grateful that at least the filmmakers didn’t change the ending to a happily ever after one.

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        • Thanks, Kat Lib! I’ve never seen the film, but I’m also glad the ending wasn’t changed and that whatever Edith Wharton was trying to say (however puzzling 🙂 ) was respected.

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  5. Great topic Dave, having a chaotic life for last few days. Sitting two pups so 3 altogether. Son and dil taking a trip. Oh dear, this one is a drama queen, scratching the bed room door all night to go out, so you could imagine I was walking around like a zombie today with an hour and half sleep. I am still planning to write later on your previous post.
    What McCain did was really a gasping moment. He remained quite when DT insulted him no being a war hero.
    I wish the senator a speedy recovery.

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    • Thank you, bebe! Sounds like you’ve been beyond busy sitting those two dogs. Hope you can make up for the lack of sleep soon.

      I still have very mixed feelings about McCain, but I’m so glad he found it in himself July 28 to go against most of his fellow Republican senators.

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      • Yet the real Hero was not McCain but Mazie Hirono , but her name is rarely mentioned. She is the first elected female Senator from Hawaii, the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate, the first U.S. Senator born in Japan, and the nation’s first Buddhist Senator.
        On July 28, 2017, two months after undergoing surgery for stage-four kidney cancer, Senator Hirono spoke on the Senate floor and voted against the so-called “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care .

        The cowards are those Men who failed to give her any credit.
        But of course Donald is the real coward together with his whole family .
        Particularly Ivanka who always remains silent for Women issues yet calls herself a champion for women.

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        • True about Mazie Hirono, bebe. VERY glad you mentioned her. She DID get little media coverage compared to McCain — totally unfair, and sexist.

          And you’re right that Trump is a coward — from avoiding the Vietnam War to everything he’s done as president (among other things, it’s gutless to lie all the time). I also agree that the entitled Ivanka is pathetic; she has enabled or not criticized almost every awful thing her father has said or done. Overall, she is not a strong feminist.

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          • I know Dave you do not want to talk about anyone’s appearances but Ivanka and Melanie are mentioned as timeless beauties, who knows how much work they have done on themselves.

            Have you taken a look at Obama’ s youngest ?
            A real knockout at her teens.

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            • Yes, bebe, money can buy a lot of things — personal trainers, the best food, the best makeup, possible plastic surgery, etc. — to make people look better. And I don’t think Ivanka and Melanie are beautiful — they look cold and scary; I guess their Donald Trump-supporting, money-grubbing personalities show through.

              The Obama family (parents and daughters) is a very handsome one!

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  6. Hi Dave, I’ll go to my “go-to” author, Jane Austen. She seems to have a character applicable for most of your columns. I suppose I have Marianne Dashwood riffing through my brain because of my comment about her a few weeks ago about her love of reading, but mainly music. In “Sense and Sensibility” the cowardly coward would have to be Willoughby, who falls in love with Marianne, yet ends up breaking her heart when he gets engaged to a wealthy heiress in hopes of not angering his aunt and not inheriting her estate. I must say that the first time I read this novel (it was the summer of 1970 while going to summer school at UT Austen), I much preferred the staid Colonel Brandon to the dashing Willoughby. Of course, some of that had to do with him giving her a pianoforte, not that that had anything to do with my just buying a piano! 🙂
    In juxtaposition to Willoughby was Edward Ferrars, who is love with Elinor, but had become engaged to another woman (actually, a girl) when much younger and before he even met Elinor. He makes the choice to give up the woman he loves in order to be honorable and do what he thought what was right, even though his mother disinherited him. Of course, his fiancée ends up dumping him in favor of the younger brother, who ends up inheriting the estate…
    …and they all lived happily ever after !
    P.S. I realized I again typed out UT Austen rather than UT Austin, but thought to let it stand!

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    • Dave, I had intended to comment on what McCain did the other day. I get great satisfaction from watching the very short clip of him casting the “no” vote that ended the Obamacare repeal, and the gasps and claps from the crowd when he did it. I just hope he stays strong through the coming battle!

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    • You’re right, Kat Lib — there are examples in Jane Austen’s work that apply to MANY column topics! Maybe not computers in literature… 🙂

      “…cowardly coward” — I like that phrase! And you certainly make a great case for Willoughby fitting that description. And, yes, despite all the absorbing machinations in Austen’s novels, they always end with those “happily ever after” moments.

      Perhaps Harriet in “Emma” could be considered a bit cowardly in listening to Emma rather than to her own heart, before things work out. Or maybe Harriet is better described as naive, impressionable, under the sway of another, etc.

      “UT Austen” — nice! Maybe Janesville (Wisconsin) should have an Austen College, too…

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      • I watched that McCain clip, too. Yes, SO satisfying — including the crestfallen look on the face of Mitch McConnell, one of the smarmiest jerks in the history of humankind.

        I still have VERY mixed feelings about McCain, and don’t necessarily trust what he’ll do in the coming months, but maybe death staring him in the face might mean he’ll continue to act more compassionately.

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      • Ha, Dave! I only realized that I used that phrase of a “cowardly coward,” which I thought was in the title of your column, until you pointed it out to me. Oh well…

        I think you’re right about Harriet in “Emma,” in that she so wanted to be like Emma, something she could never do, that she tried to pretend that she was on the same social level as the Woodhouse/ Knightley families. One would have hoped that she would have seen the worth of the man who loved her, and the family that she loved being with, rather than being caught up into Emma’s world. I’ve seen a movie and A&E production of this novel, and I think they make light of the fact that Emma felt her own superiority over Harriet at the end of the novel, and they were never as close as they had been (after being disclosed that Harriet was the daughter of a tradesman).

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        • Well, Kat Lib, even if “cowardly coward” happened sort of by accident, I’m glad it happened! 🙂

          Harriet definitely looked up to Emma, who didn’t deserve to be looked up to. And, yes, definitely some class differences/class snobbery exposed in both the novel and screen adaptations. The irony, of course, is that Harriet is a nicer person than Emma. And not dumb — I think if there ever were an “Emma” sequel, she would become a perfectly intelligent person in her adult years.

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          • Well, Dave, the A&E production of “Emma” was beautifully done, starring the gorgeous Kate Beckinsale as Emma (who even spoke English as British people do naturally!). However, I felt as though Jane Austen wouldn’t have recognized this incarnation of her character, especially since she didn’t exactly follow the arc of same. Not that Emma was by any means a monster, but there was still an ultimately social and snobbish side to her that the movies didn’t show.

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            • OK, I just learned on my news feed that Scaramucci has been ousted as Director of Communications after his profanity-filled interview appeared in the last couple of days. Surprise, surprise!

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              • Ha! I read that, too! What did he last — 10 or 11 days? Now he’s been deservedly “divorced” twice (personally and professionally) during the past week or so. Richly deserved…

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  7. Great topic! An interesting question is whether Nikolai Rostov from “War and Peace” is a coward. He becomes a distinguished officer as the book progresses, but in his first battle he wanders around, lost, confused, and scared–not exactly a heroic figure! Later he learns how to deal with battle but can’t get his personal life together, and doesn’t have the courage to either marry his impoverished fiancee Sonya against his parents’ wishes, or break it off with her definitively and pursue a wealthy heiress, as they want him to. For all his physical activity, he’s often a very passive, fearful character.

    The Master from Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita” is also ostensibly a coward, burning his manuscript when it is criticized and he undergoes political persecution. His cowardice is paralleled with the cowardice of Pontius Pilate, who sentences an innocent man (Yeshua Ha-Notsri, aka Jesus) to die. Both of them are tormented by one of the catchphrases of the novel, which is “the greatest of all sins is cowardice.” Their cowardice in the face of social pressure and public opinion is contrasted with the courage of Margarita, who is willing to preside naked over Satan’s Ball if that means saving the man she loves. Brings up some interesting questions about gender roles, since it’s the woman in the book who is the active, courageous hero, saving the fearful, passive male hero–but her courage is entirely at the service of the man in her life, whom she calls “The Master.”

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    • Thank you, elenapedigo! And a great/eloquent take on two novels, and the (possible) cowardice within them.

      After reading your comment, some literal cowardice in Tolstoy’s “The Kreutzer Sonata” occurred to me. (Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t read that fantastic novella — or is it a long short story?) The jealous husband kills his wife in the presence of violinist Troukhatchevsky, who the wife has taken a liking to. The terrified violinist flees the scene.

      And is the title character in Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” sort of cowardly for having lived such a conventional life? (Before his not-so-conventional demise.)

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  8. Hi Dave,

    The Cowardly Lion seemed to be an obvious character to think of 🙂

    I’ve just finished reading Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd” which I bought second hand. I think the previous owner had to read it for school, and had made notes inside the covers, and in some of the margins. When Bathsheba realises that she’s married to a man who isn’t one of the good guys, she has to choose between being on her own, or staying with a man who might beat her. She makes up her mind to stay with her husband, despite how badly she might be treated, and in the margin of that page was written the word courageous, which I completely disagree with. I know it was a different world then than it is now, but I don’t think it’s ok to volunteer to be a victim. And even if there were no better choices, courageous is not how I would have described Bathsheba staying with her husband.

    I completely agree about Gilderoy Lockhart who was definitely gutless, but he was also such good fun! I loved that character. Especially in the film adaptation.

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    • Thank you, Sue!

      Lockhart was indeed fun in his comically evil way, and Kenneth Branagh did a GREAT job playing him in the movie.

      I hear you about Bathsheba. Definitely not courageous. Women indeed had fewer options back then, yet some fictional characters did leave abusive husbands — with one notable example Helen in Anne Brontë’s excellent “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

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      • Dave, it’s funny that you’d mention that Bronte novel. I’m kind of going through withdrawals from Thomas Hardy. The other book that I’m reading at the moment is a long, popular, YA, fantasy book. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but I’m just not getting into it. So I was tempted to deviate from my list, and randomly take something off my shelf that I haven’t read yet. “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” was yelling Pick me! Pick me! I’m actually apprehensive about reading that Anne Bronte novel as I loved “Jane Eyre” but was so disappointed with “Wuthering Heights”. But I think I’m gong to be good and stick to my list anyway. And if I don’t push myself to get through the fantasy book, then I’ll still be reading it in my 80s!

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        • Wow, Sue — a coincidence about “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”! “Jane Eyre” is a more riveting novel, but “Tenant” is pretty darn good and one of the most feminist books of the 19th century.

          Good luck finishing that fantasy novel!

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          • Sue, you and Dave keep filling up my to-be-read shelf (along with all the other commenters here), to the point where I’ve used up the space allotted to same. I also have a lot of books in my Nook, mostly those that were to be had for 90 cents or $1.99 or even for free. I suppose that it’s a nice predicament to be in that I’ve got so many books to read or re-read that should last me all my life. But then, there’s always the next book that comes along that I just have to have! 🙂

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