Ford Madox Brown, “Work” (1865)
Friday
I’ve set myself the challenge in today’s post to name the best literary depictions of different professions. It’s one of those exercises that’s more useful for spurring conversations than providing definite answers, but what else is this blog for? Feel free to add more professions to the list as well as weigh in with alternatives to my choices.
College Professor – William Stoner in John Williams’s Stoner (runner-up: Vivian Bearing in W;t)
Teacher – Lucy Snowe in Villette
Intellectual – Dr. Faustus
Scientist – Victor Frankenstein
Author – David Copperfield
Farmer – The Joad Family in Grapes of Wrath
Farmhand – George and Lenny in Of Mice and Men
Cowboy – Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove
Governess – Jane Eyre
Doctor – Doc Daneeka in Catch-22
Veterinarian – Doctor Doolittle
Nurse – Nurse Ratched
Lawyer – Tulkinghorn in Bleak House
Legal clerk – Bartleby
Ship captain – Marlow in Heart of Darkness
Sailor – Billy Budd
Whale harpooner – Queequeg
Fisherman – Hemingway’s Old Man
Carpenter – Adam Bede
Politician – Marc Antony in Julius Caesar
Dairymaid – Tess Durbeyfield
Military Commander – Othello (runner-up: Macbeth)
Enlisted Man – Rat Kiley in The Things They Carried
Enlisted Woman – Mary Anne Bell (a.k.a. Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong)
Warrior – Homer’s Achilles
Private Eye – toss-up between Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe
Detective – Sherlock Holmes, of course
Gentleman Detective – Sir Peter Whimsey
Banker – Scrooge
Thief – Moll Flanders
Prostitute – Sonia in Crime and Punishment
Courtesan – Madame de Merteuil in Liaisons Dangereuses
Fence – Peachum in Beggar’s Opera (runner-up: Fagan)
Highwayman – Mac the Knife (runner-up: Alfred Noyes’s highwayman)
Housewife – Emma Bovary (runner-up: Mrs. Dalloway)
Factory owner – Bounderby
Factory worker – Boxer in Animal Farm
Landlady – Mistress Quickly (runner-up: Mrs. Hudson)
Squire – Darcy
Minister – Parson Adams in Joseph Andrews
Nun – Mother Superior in Doubt
Salvation Army missionary – Major Barbara
Realtor – the entire office of Glengarry Glen Ross
Salesman – Willie Loman
Send in your own favorites.
