Standing By Your Principles

January 17, 2005 11:11 AM

I'm looking for fresh examples from literature (short stories, poems, or parts of larger works) that involve characters who stick to a set of good principles and are admired, even though sticking to the principles may involve some sacrifice for everyone else. A good example would be Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". I'm also looking for examples in which people stubbornly stand by good principles when they are clearly getting in the way of some greater good. [MI]

Ideally, I'm after stuff which would be somewhat contemporary, but still literary. Thanks!

posted by ontic to Writing & Language (28 answers total)

Sir Able in Gene Wolfe's "The Knight" sticks by his principles fanatically, and comes to be almost universally admired.
posted by agropyron at 11:17 AM on January 17, 2005

Dorothea Brooke?
posted by josh at 11:19 AM on January 17, 2005

I instantly thought of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Is this fresh enough for you?
posted by ronv at 12:21 PM on January 17, 2005

Faulkner's Gavin Stevens comes to mind, especially in The Town.
posted by willpie at 12:26 PM on January 17, 2005

Roland, the gunslinger from Stephen King's Dark Tower books?
posted by Wolfdog at 12:54 PM on January 17, 2005

Second category: Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide. Simply put, it's "a searching analysis of the incompleteness and narrowness of the moral philosophy of Protestantism."
posted by leslita at 12:57 PM on January 17, 2005

It's not contemporary, but take a look at Les Miserable. It's all about those themes.
posted by willnot at 12:58 PM on January 17, 2005

Scanning my bookshelf...

The Sot-Weed Factor might work, as it's about a character who struggles to maintain his virginity through all sorts of sexual escapades, but he's presented a little bit humourously - it's a bit too easy for the reader to poke fun at him.

I immediately thought of The Remains of the Day, but that's the complete opposite of what you want: by the end of the book, the narrator's principles are presented in a negative light. Then I realized how easy it is to come up with fiction in which a character thinks his or her principles are good but is ruined by them. From King Lear to Disgrace, it seems to be a pretty common literary theme. I'm really amazed that I can't find any books on my bookshelves that vindicate a character's moral principles rather than challenge them.
posted by painquale at 1:05 PM on January 17, 2005

In Barth's "The End of the Road" Joe Morgan certainly sticks to his (odd) principles, and his wife Rennie admires that - and suffers for it. I'm not sure you could call any of the principles in the book "good" though - they seem so at first, perhaps, but then they become completely unworkable and rigid in the face of change. Here's an excerpt that sort of shows it, though it's rather confusing without knowing the characters and their history.
posted by katie at 1:19 PM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for all the great suggestions -- keep 'em coming! I'd forgotten about Gavin Stevens, thanks willpie.
posted by ontic at 1:52 PM on January 17, 2005

Kesey's 'Sometimes A Great Notion' is a great example of a lot of what you're looking for, but it's a gargantuan work, and it might be hard to extract those ideas out of it in the form of a short passage. Not without reading most of the book first, anyway.
posted by bingo at 1:54 PM on January 17, 2005

I thought of The End of the Road too, but Joe Morgan's principles are definitely reprehensible, so I don't think it's exactly what ontic wants. It's a great book though, and googling it, I found out a movie of it was made. Onto Netflix it goes!
posted by painquale at 1:57 PM on January 17, 2005

everything ayn rand ever wrote. Not saying good or bad. Saying that her characters do stick to their guns - whatever their guns may be.
posted by u.n. owen at 2:08 PM on January 17, 2005

Agreed. Howard Roark from The Fountainhead being a leading contender.
posted by Pinwheel at 2:45 PM on January 17, 2005

Macbeth?


Ahahahahahahaha.

In seriousness I would say Ivan Denisovich.
posted by orange clock at 3:19 PM on January 17, 2005

agropyron: funny, I was going to suggest Gene Wolfe's character Silk from The Book of the Long Sun and The Book of the Short Sun (though I admit I haven't yet finished the former, and haven't started the latter).

BTW, folks: Wolfe kicks so much ass.

Also, while we're doing the SciFi thing, how about Leto II from Frank Herbert's Dune books?
posted by funkbrain at 3:45 PM on January 17, 2005

We've talked about Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons here before. I'd suggest that Roschach, at the end of the book, is a good example of refusing to compromise an ethical principle regardless of the consequences.
posted by jeffmshaw at 4:30 PM on January 17, 2005

Ideally, I'm after stuff which would be somewhat contemporary

Guess that rules out "Bartleby the Scrivner"...?
posted by mudpuppie at 5:45 PM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: Hm. I hadn't thought about Bartleby. I'm not sure I can figure out what his laudable principle would be. Billy Budd is on my list, however.

What would you say Bartleby was standing for? Dissent?
posted by ontic at 5:55 PM on January 17, 2005

In Mercy Among the Children, the protagonist makes a vow as a child to never harm a human being. Probably about as noble a principle as one could hope for.

He stands by this vow his entire life. However, looking at the big picture his refusal to inflict day to day harms on others is disastrous, destroying his own life, requiring great sacrifices of his family, and in the end costing him the respect of his son.

A fantastic book and well worth reading even if it's not quite what you're looking for for whatever purposes you're searching here.
posted by duck at 7:11 PM on January 17, 2005

Way on the wrong end of the "modernity" spectrum, but Antigone is a great example of exactly this case.

Given the general definition of tragedy, there are actually a whole bunch of classic tragedies that could fit into this model, actually--it's pretty common to have the "tragic flaw" be "an insistence on principles over practicality". Think Man For All Seasons/Thomas More, Thomas Becket, etc.
posted by LairBob at 8:14 PM on January 17, 2005

On the same spectrum-end as LairBob, there's the Ramayana, where Rama's wife Sita keeps getting one raw deal after another so her husband can maintain his precious dharma. Narayan has a good modern prose translation, or there's always the funnypages.
posted by bibliowench at 8:59 PM on January 17, 2005

Hm. I hadn't thought about Bartleby. I'm not sure I can figure out what his laudable principle would be.

Principle for the sake of principle?
posted by mudpuppie at 9:54 PM on January 17, 2005

Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon
posted by kirkaracha at 10:28 PM on January 17, 2005

Spock. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
posted by inksyndicate at 10:50 PM on January 17, 2005

In your second category, the main character in Iain M. Banks' 'Consider Phlebas'.
posted by biffa at 2:26 AM on January 18, 2005

Voltaire's Candide.
posted by languagehat at 8:07 AM on January 18, 2005

Sir Thomas More, A Man For All Seasons.
posted by mkultra at 12:10 PM on January 18, 2005