Difference between revisions of "Asexuality in fiction"
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==Literature== | ==Literature== | ||
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+ | * Please note: when noting characters of interest, anyone listed with [SA] next to their name refers to those who are believed to be Asexual. Their sexuality may or may not (have) be(en) confirmed by the author. | ||
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===Novels=== | ===Novels=== | ||
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! Title | ! Title | ||
! Author | ! Author | ||
− | ! Character(s) | + | ! Plot |
+ | ! Characters* | ||
+ | ! Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | A Clergyman's Daughter || George Orwell || “Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket and cannot remember her name. Orwell leads us through a landscape of unemployment, poverty and hunger, where Dorothy's faith is challenged by a social reality that changes her life.” || Dorothy Hare || English | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | A Room With A View || E. M. Forster || Plot || Mr. Beebe [SA] and Cecil Vyse [SA] || English | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | All Souls || Javier Marías and Magaret Jull Costa || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast || Bill Richardson || “A pair of endearingly eccentric bachelors--in their fifties, and fraternal twins--own and operate a bed & breakfast establishment where people like them, the "gentle and bookish and ever so slightly confused," can feel at home. Hector and Virgil think of their B&B as a refuge, a retreat, a haven, where folks may bring their own books or peruse the brothers' own substantial library. An antic blend of homespun and intellectual humor, Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is a place readers will want to return to again and again.” || Virgil [SA] || English | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Bone People || Keri Hulme || “Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that "to care for anything is to invite disaster." Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character's thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.” || Kerewin Holmes [SA] || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Book of Disquiet || Fernando Pessoa || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | Bridge to Terabithia || Katherine Patterson || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | Carrie Pilby || Caren Lissner || Carrie would rather stay in bed than deal with the immoral, sex-obsessed hypocrites who seem to overrun her hometown, New York City. She's sick of trying to be like everybody else. She isn't! But when her own therapist gives her a five-point plan to change her social-outcast status, Carrie takes a hard look at herself—and agrees to try. Suddenly the world doesn't seem so bad. But is prodigy Carrie really going to dumb things down just to fit in? || Carrie Pilby || English | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | Case Histories: A Novel || Kate Atkinson || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Cider House Rules || John Irving || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Collector || John Fowles || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | Crampton Hodnet || Barbara Pym || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | Darkly Dreaming Dexter || Jeff Lindsay || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | The Dwarf || Pär Lagerkvist || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Forbidden Colors || Yukio Mishima || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Geek Love || Katherine Dunn || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Herland || Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | The Hyannis House || Gordon Mathieson || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Infinite Jest || David Foster Wallace || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Jude The Obscure || Thomas Hardy || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | ' | + | | July, July || Tim O'Brien || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | The Kreutzer Sonata || Leo Tolstoi || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | The Left Hand of Darkness || Ursula K. Le Guin || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Lily White || Susan Isaac || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Namedropper: A Novel || Emma Forrest || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | No Touching || Aileen Deng || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Operation Hurdler, and Operation Outside Hitter || Michael Bilka || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | The Pavilion of Women || Pearl S. Buck || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Scenes From A Holiday || Caren Lissner || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Seethings || Michael Forman || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Sexing the Cherry || Jeanette Winterson || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | | Sherlock Holmes Mysteries || Sir Arthur Conan Doyle || Plot || Character || Language(s) |
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Son - || Jo Nesbø || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | To The Lighthouse || Virginia Woolf || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | What Happened to Lani Garver || Carol Plum-Ucci || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The World According to Garp || John Irving || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | The Wrong Boy || Willy Russell || Plot || Character || Language(s) | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
|- | |- | ||
|} | |} | ||
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! Title | ! Title | ||
! Author | ! Author | ||
− | ! | + | ! Plot |
+ | ! Characters* | ||
+ | ! Language(s) | ||
|- | |- | ||
| ''White Mars'' || Brian W. Aldiss || Cang Hai | | ''White Mars'' || Brian W. Aldiss || Cang Hai | ||
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! Title | ! Title | ||
! Author | ! Author | ||
− | ! | + | ! Plot |
+ | ! Characters* | ||
+ | ! Language(s) | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Aye, and Gomorrah || Samuel R. Delaney || Spacers | | Aye, and Gomorrah || Samuel R. Delaney || Spacers |
Revision as of 19:11, 31 July 2015
This list is for fictional portrayals of asexual or suspected-asexual characters. For non-fiction, see Asexuality in non-fiction.
Please expand this list!
Contents
Literature
- Please note: when noting characters of interest, anyone listed with [SA] next to their name refers to those who are believed to be Asexual. Their sexuality may or may not (have) be(en) confirmed by the author.
Novels
Title | Author | Plot | Characters* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
A Clergyman's Daughter | George Orwell | “Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket and cannot remember her name. Orwell leads us through a landscape of unemployment, poverty and hunger, where Dorothy's faith is challenged by a social reality that changes her life.” | Dorothy Hare | English |
A Room With A View | E. M. Forster | Plot | Mr. Beebe [SA] and Cecil Vyse [SA] | English |
All Souls | Javier Marías and Magaret Jull Costa | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast | Bill Richardson | “A pair of endearingly eccentric bachelors--in their fifties, and fraternal twins--own and operate a bed & breakfast establishment where people like them, the "gentle and bookish and ever so slightly confused," can feel at home. Hector and Virgil think of their B&B as a refuge, a retreat, a haven, where folks may bring their own books or peruse the brothers' own substantial library. An antic blend of homespun and intellectual humor, Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is a place readers will want to return to again and again.” | Virgil [SA] | English |
The Bone People | Keri Hulme | “Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that "to care for anything is to invite disaster." Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character's thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.” | Kerewin Holmes [SA] | Language(s) |
The Book of Disquiet | Fernando Pessoa | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Bridge to Terabithia | Katherine Patterson | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Carrie Pilby | Caren Lissner | Carrie would rather stay in bed than deal with the immoral, sex-obsessed hypocrites who seem to overrun her hometown, New York City. She's sick of trying to be like everybody else. She isn't! But when her own therapist gives her a five-point plan to change her social-outcast status, Carrie takes a hard look at herself—and agrees to try. Suddenly the world doesn't seem so bad. But is prodigy Carrie really going to dumb things down just to fit in? | Carrie Pilby | English |
Case Histories: A Novel | Kate Atkinson | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Cider House Rules | John Irving | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Collector | John Fowles | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Crampton Hodnet | Barbara Pym | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Darkly Dreaming Dexter | Jeff Lindsay | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Dwarf | Pär Lagerkvist | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Forbidden Colors | Yukio Mishima | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Geek Love | Katherine Dunn | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Herland | Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Hyannis House | Gordon Mathieson | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Infinite Jest | David Foster Wallace | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Jude The Obscure | Thomas Hardy | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
July, July | Tim O'Brien | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Kreutzer Sonata | Leo Tolstoi | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Left Hand of Darkness | Ursula K. Le Guin | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Lily White | Susan Isaac | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Namedropper: A Novel | Emma Forrest | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
No Touching | Aileen Deng | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Operation Hurdler, and Operation Outside Hitter | Michael Bilka | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Pavilion of Women | Pearl S. Buck | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Scenes From A Holiday | Caren Lissner | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Seethings | Michael Forman | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Sexing the Cherry | Jeanette Winterson | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Sherlock Holmes Mysteries | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Son - | Jo Nesbø | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
To The Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
What Happened to Lani Garver | Carol Plum-Ucci | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The World According to Garp | John Irving | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Wrong Boy | Willy Russell | Plot | Character | Language(s)
|
Science fiction and fantasy
Title | Author | Plot | Characters* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
White Mars | Brian W. Aldiss | Cang Hai | ||
I, Robot | Isaac Asimov | Dr. Susan Calvin | ||
Diaspora | Greg Egan | Akili | ||
Distress | Greg Egan | ? | ||
Fool's Errand, Golden Fool, Fool's Fate | Robin Hobb | Amber/Lord Golden | ||
The Fire's Stone | Tanya Huff | Chandra | ||
The Metabarons: Aghora the Father-Mother & Immaculate Conception | Alexandro Jodorowsky | Aghora | ||
The Oathbound, Oathbreakers, and Oathblood | Mercedes Lackey | Tarma | ||
Ombria in Shadow | Patricia A. McKillip | Mag the Waxling | ||
The Deed of Paksenarrion: A Novel | Elizabeth Moon | Paks | ||
The best of all possible worlds | Karen Lord | Lian | ||
When the King Comes Home | Caroline Stevermer | Hail Rosamer | ||
Cat's Cradle | Kurt Vonnegut | Mona Aamons Monzano | ||
Deadeye Dick | Kurt Vonnegut | Rudy Waltz | ||
Rose of the Prophet Trilogy: The Will of the Wanderer, The Paladin of the Night, The Prophet of Akhran | Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman | Azriel | ||
The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | Bilbo Baggins |
Short stories
Title | Author | Plot | Characters* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Aye, and Gomorrah | Samuel R. Delaney | Spacers | ||
The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff | Theodore Sturgeon | ? |
Featuring asexual or suspected-asexual characters
- Susan Isaacs - Lily White (sexual main characters lead asexual relationship)
- Caren Lissner - Carrie Pilby (Carrie Pilby)
- Caren Lissner et al. - Scenes From A Holiday (Carrie Pilby, see novella titled "Carrie Pilby's New Year's Resolution")
- Tim O'Brien - July, July (Marla Dempsey)
- George Orwell - A Clergyman's Daughter (Dorothy Hare)
- Banana Yoshimoto - The Lake (Nakajima; asexual relationship)
Movies
Year | Title | Reason | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1987 | Withnail and I | The film ends with Withnail saying "Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither."[1] (These words are in fact originally taken from a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, act 2, scene 2.[2]) | Directed by Bruce Robinson |
2006 | Sherlock Holmes (Most versions) | Sherlock Holmes is generally considered asexual. | - |
2010 | Inception | Ellen Page plays Ariadne. Unusually for a female character, she isn't a romantic interest and she expresses no desire for other characters in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Arthur, tricks her into a kiss once, to which she seems unreactive. | Directed by Christopher Nolan |
2004 | Mysterious Skin | Brian Lackey, who was sexually abused as a child. He shows no interest in sex or romance, and seems repulsed when a female character abruptly tries to kiss, touch and undress him. Another character describes his "vibe" as "kinda weirdly asexual."[3] His memories of the abuse are strongly repressed until the end of the movie, as he believes he was abducted by aliens and not sexually abused. | Directed by Gregg Araki |
Television Shows
Year | Title | Reason |
---|---|---|
2006 – present | Dexter | The title character, a serial killer, feels emotionally divorced from the rest of humanity and has no interest in romance or sex.[4] |
1963 – 1989, 2005 – present |
Doctor Who | The Doctor's sexuality is ambiguous; his relationship with Rose Tyler has been described as "a love story without the shagging".[5] |
2010 | Huge | American show, character Poppy (played by Zoe Jarman) is the girl's cabin leader. She self-identifies as asexual in season 1, episode 5.[6] |
2002 – present | Ouran High School Host Club | Haruhi Fujioka, the main character, has no interest in romance and prefers platonic relationships despite being surrounded by attractive males and females.[7] |
1992 – present | Shortland street | New Zealand TV Show - character Gerald is asexual.[8][9] |
2007 – present | The Big Bang Theory | American sitcom, character Sheldon Cooper expresses asexual tendencies. |
1985 – 1992 | The Golden Girls | American sitcom, character Rose never thought about sex before she was married and when her husband wanted to have sex for the first time she didn't really understand sexual desire. She has never orgasmed. |
2006 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya | One known asexual character, Yuki Nagato, and an anti-romantic character (titular). The show doesn't feature any relationships except for platonic ones, although the narrator character does experience some sexual attraction himself.[10] |
2010 | Sherlock | Holmes says having a girlfriend is "not really my area", he considers himself "married to [his] work", and tells Watson, "I am flattered by your interest, [but] I am really not looking for anyone." Steven Moffat said in an interview 'He's happy being Sherlock Holmes... other people might have a problem with him being asexual, he doesn't have any problem with it, he's fine.'[11] |
2014 - 2015 | Sirens | Voodoo, one of the EMTs has canonically said that she is asexual. The other EMTs refute the theory that she "hasn't met the right person" by saying that she met Johnny Depp and only thought that he wore too much makeup. |
2015 - present | The March Family Letters | Webseries. When asked if she had a crush on Laurie, Beth asked, "You do remember that I'm ace, right?" Jo responded by saying "that doesn't mean you're aromantic." Beth made no further comment on her romantic orientation, only saying that she was not interested in Laurie. |
See also
External Links
- TV Tropes article on asexuality
References
- ↑ Withnail & I on Shitespace
- ↑ Hamlet Text and Translation - Act II - Scene II on eNotes
- ↑ Mysterious Skin Script - Dialogue Transcript on Drew's Script-O-Rama
- ↑ Dexter - on AVEN Forums
- ↑ Doctor (Doctor Who) on Wikipedia
- ↑ Huge (TV series) on Wikipedia
- ↑ TV romantic cliches *clenches fist* - on AVEN Forums
- ↑ Shortland Street Asexuality Storyline - playlist on YouTube
- ↑ Shortland Street on TVNZ
- ↑ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - on AVEN Forums
- ↑ Sherlock – Audio interview with Steven Moffat on Geek Syndicate