Modernizing Classic Characters
There are some characters in literature that simply will not
go away. Call it love, call it stubbornness, call it whatever you will, but
while thousands of books and their principle players have been buried inches
deep in dust on old bookshelves, there are some characters so resilient that
they are as beloved now as when they first came into existence. Romeo and Juliet will never rest in peace;
Oedipus will perpetually be cycling, and readers will be trying to make sense
of Ulysses until the apocalypse.
What makes us love these characters and their stories so
much? There isn’t a single answer (how could there be?) but it seems to lie
somewhere in the ballpark of universality of a deeply shared commonality or
humanity, or something equally as deep sounding. As long as these characters
live in their original habitats, there can be a gulf between them and us, their
present-day readers. They exist in a different world and although we share a fundamental
humanity, our outward and societal experiences have some inherent differences.
But that is, ladies and gents, how we come to our current trend: modern
reinterpretations.
