Fiction That Achieves Underachievement

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A forlorn Yankees dugout. (Getty Images.)

With the New York Yankees eliminated from the playoffs again last week despite having one of the highest payrolls in baseball, it’s time to take a swing at the topic of underachievers. In literature.

There are various reasons why fictional characters underachieve. Laziness, being spoiled, making dumb decisions, having psychological issues, having some physical or mental disability, etc. And there are cases where underachieving is a good thing – like, say, choosing a more-relaxing lifestyle over a frantic, high-paying job.

Our first underachiever to discuss is Tom Tulliver of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. He’s from an initially affluent family, is favored over his smarter sister Maggie during an ultra-patriarchal 19th century, and so on, but becomes only somewhat successful. Why? For one thing, Tom is not that intelligent despite have some drive and practical skills, and he’s not very capable of “thinking outside the box.”

Another 19th-century character, Isabel Archer of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady, also has advantages: smarts, kindness, good looks, an inheritance, some independence. But she gets manipulated into a miserable marriage, and seems too wedded to conventionality to possibly get out of it. Again, a very patriarchal time and place in which to live.

Then there are bright characters whose lives are blighted well into adulthood because of the responsibility they feel, or are browbeaten into feeling, toward problematic parents.

For instance, the title character of Honore de Balzac’s Eugenie Grandet devotes much of her young-adult life to her not-nice, miserly father – essentially assuming the role of her late mother/his late wife.

In Daphne du Maurier’s The Parasites, daughter Celia in the theatrical Delaney family has a lot of drawing talent, but doesn’t pursue that craft as she devotes most of her time to doing stuff for her self-centered, demanding father.

Ignatius J. Reilly of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces is a pretty smart guy. But he’s too lazy, too eccentric, and too…various other things to make a success of his life.

Holden Caulfield of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is also brainy, but drifts through his young life with self-centered and alienated thoughts.

Moving briefly away from novels, famous fictional underachievers include the title character of Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and Willy Loman of Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman.”

Of course, novels can feature upward or downward arcs in underachievement and achievement. One upward example is Sydney Carton, of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, who has an unsuccessful life until choosing heroic redemption. One downward example is Gervaise Macquart, of Emile Zola’s The Drinking Den, who painstakingly builds a successful life as a businesswoman until being dragged down by her once-admirable roofer husband after an injury sends him spiraling into alcoholism.

Your thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

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79 thoughts on “Fiction That Achieves Underachievement”

  1. Dear Dave
    Thomas Mann’s “Buddenbooks” is full of underachievers. And of course Ahab in Moby Dick goes down in every respect. Interesting is the case of Dr Hermann Faust in Goethes “Faust”. At least in the end he is saved, the Eternal Feminine draws him upward.
    We notice, thinking about it, we remember more protagonists going down than up.
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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    • Thank you, Klausbernd! Great mentions! I hadn’t thought of Ahab as an underachiever example, but of course he is; his obsessive mission was a complete failure. And you have a point about many other protagonists also not succeeding as much they’d want.

      One of these days I’ll read “Buddenbrooks” and “Faust”…

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  2. Hi Dave!

    A most unusual post topic this week!

    The first thing I thought about fictional underachievers is; will that character be appealing enough to carry the plot?!

    Although I’m yet to read, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, I like the idea of growth in character. That in itself will produce an interesting plot narrative.

    Nice post Dave although the majority of the books mentioned I am not familiar with. ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, I have heard mixed reviews on. Some say it’s dull while others say it’s brilliant!

    Thanks as always for the books!

    Greetings from London!

    Sharon 😊

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  3. The first thing that came to mind was “The Boxer” by S&G:

    I am just a poor boy
    Though my story’s seldom told
    I have squandered my resistance
    For a pocket full of mumbles

    But reining it in from music, I think one underachiever was Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens) who starts as a brilliant man but squanders his abilities…

    Interesting post! 😎

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    • Thank you, Darryl! “The Boxer” is a terrific song, and the person in it definitely doesn’t achieve as much as he’d like.

      Sydney Carton is indeed also an underachiever, though of course he does something about that at the end of the book.

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  4. Hi Dave, an interesting topic. Many of the books I’ve read where women underachieve it was for to the misogynistic family / society they lived in. Examples are the mother and Meggie from The Thorn Birds, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Hester from The Scarlet Letter. Upward trajectories – Henry from The Red Badge of Courage, Bill Mason from The Day of the Triffids, Ayla from The clan of the cave Bear, Oliver from Oliver Twist. Downward trajectories – Paul from All Quiet on the Western Front. Most of the characters in Carrie, Jack Torrance from The Shining and Neil Perry and Mr Keating from Dead Poets Society.

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  5. Writers are drawn to underachieving, stuck, and miserable protagonists because perfection is boring, but struggle is universal. While a hero who effortlessly wins is satisfying as wish-fulfillment, a character who is failing at life offers a deep, rich canvas for exploring the human condition.

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    • Thank you, Shaharee! SO true and SO well said! Yes, happy/confident/successful characters might be inspiring by also kind of boring…and might make readers feel jealous and inadequate in comparison. Underachieving characters can also be boring in some cases, and can evoke reader feelings of “why can’t they do better?” But, in general, many are very interesting and relatable — and, as you say, give authors a lot to work with.

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  6. Gee, I can’t think of a better example than Sydney Carton. Good one!

    So, I’ll offer up Henry in Hollywood by Bukowski. Fiction based in reality, a rummy come poet and writer; it seems Bukowski is the under achiever who achieves both in real life, and in fiction.

    You come up with some fab topics Dave… and I’m not just trying to butter you up because I don’t know if my example is a good one. 😉

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  7. Another great post, Dave and a nice collection of comments. Beyond the popular books in your list, I’m not familiar with the examples or characters. The only one I do know is A Confederacy of Dunces. That was a gift from a friend who gave it to me because I told him I was interested in writing. I enjoyed it, and I gave one of my main characters the middle name ‘Ignatius’.

    I might dip back into Dickens and suggest that Bob Cratchit might be considered by some to be an under achiever. I think he was actually quite successful, but not in a way we might measure success.

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    • Thank you, Dan! “A Confederacy of Dunces” is definitely enjoyable; one of the funnier novels out there. Nice that it inspired a character name for you!

      Yes, having a low-level job but having a loving family life makes a person — such as Bob Cratchit — successful in a very important way.

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  8. Hi Dave, I can think of just one. It was a lovely book which I borrowed from our library. It’s called “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery. Here’s a little blurb: The book follows events in the life of a concierge, Renée Michel, who deliberately masks her immense intelligence behind a facade of predictable, unachieving mediocrity to preserve her solitary peace. But then she was uncovered by an unstable but intellectually precocious girl named Paloma Josse. Paloma is the daughter of an upper-class family living in the large and beautiful townhouse where Renée works. It’s definitely worth reading this one (I would say).

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    • Thank you, Ada! Yes, underachievers should get the spotlight once in a while. 🙂

      Though it’s mostly downbeat, “The Portrait of a Lady” is my favorite Henry James novel. Written before his sentences got too wordy and too convoluted.

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  11. I’m late to the party today, Dave, so all I can come up with at present is Kamal, in ‘The Cairo Trilogy’ by Naguib Mahfouz. He’s an intelligent young man, but becomes a lowly teacher in a primary school. He’s capable of so much more, but having grown from religious boy into a sceptical secular man with a philosophical turn of mind, he’s plagued by doubts which translate into inaction on his part. He’s also disappointed in love, falling for a girl who’s far above him socially, so remains a bachelor for his entire life. In short, he’s a massive waste of great potential. On another level of under-achieving in the book is his older half-brother Yasin, who does a desk job which provides him with a living, firstly because he’s too lazy to seek anything better and also because he likes to spend his time in drinking and other baser pursuits of life. If I can think of anyone else I’ll be back, but thanks for a great topic. Have a good week. 🙂

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  12. Dave, thanks for highlighting the underachievers among our fictional characters. I’ve only read a few of the titles you’ve mentioned. The stories we tell mirror the real world and, sad to say, many of us are underachievers for all kinds of reasons. Even those characters, real and fictional, who may succeed in achieving their dream will lose something or someone along their climb to the top. They may even lose themselves.

    By the way, thanks to one of your posts, I’m now reading “The Hunter” by Tana French. I love the way she builds her world and characters. I look forward to reading more of her work.

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  13. Wow…so much to dig into here. Thank you, Dave. Especially because I’ve not read many of the books you’ve referenced. Truly — you amaze me. I don’t know that I have anything compelling to add, but I can say Willy Loman’s character in “Death of a Salesman” stands out as a poignant and painful portrayal of male fragility. I think it was the first ever “script as a book” I read when I was in high school. The raw vulnerability still sticks with me. ❤️

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  14. Speaking of ‘effects on the Reader*’ on me your post was a mix of ‘oh yeah, I read that’ and ‘I’ve heard of that (author or title)… this in the context of one of those time-travel flashes that are as much emotion as intellect (more commonly associated, at leas for me, with music from the before time.

    and, predictably (my) follow-up reaction being… “Well, come on! Read it. That’s why god invented kindles.” lol

    seriously, my question to myself is “What, did you read like Evelyn Wood back then or maybe time passed differently.”

    fun post

    *keying off Marie’s comment

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  15. Dave, another exceptional post!!! This is such an important topic because these characters can teach us something about our own lives. They make us think about whether we are really living in step with ourselves, or simply moving along the path that seems expected of us. Your thoughts brought to mind a book that I just reread a few months ago – Night Train to Lisbon. Raimund Gregorius, the main character, is intelligent and accomplished, yet his life has become so narrow that much of what he might have experienced seems to have passed him by. His journey to Lisbon feels almost like an awakening to the life he had not yet lived. This is one of my takeaway quotes from my reading: “Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us — what happens with the rest?”

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