Moving this to Cafe Society.
I thought Fredo was still alive when the book ended.
Finally remembered the one I didn’t post before! Turin Turambar in The Silmarillion.
Cecilia in The Virgin Suicides. A lot of death in that book, but hers is the one that starts the ball rolling.
Well, I’m not suggesting that this qualifies as great literature, but since someone already mentioned Marvin from the Douglas Adams books, what the heck. The Four Bikers of the Apocalypse from Good Omens, a fine, fine book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
The death of V, in her priest’s clothes, in Thomas Pynchon’s V. She’s basically disassembled by a group of children, having become more made up of metal and glass prosthetics than flesh and bone by the end of the novel.
The death of Dorian Gray, in Oscar Wilde’s novel.
Gregor Samsa (the person-turned-giant-bug) in The Metamorphosis. That death scene always kills me. Not really a spoiler, but I’ll put the quote in a box anyway:
“The first broadening of light in the world outside the window just entered his consciousness. Then his head sank to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath.”
Where the Red Fern Grows
I remember crying as I read the end as a kid.
Tertius01, my dad and I picked Where the Red Fern Grows as bedtime reading when I was a kid, and we both cried.
Cyrano de Bergerac. And maybe Proginoskes in L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, if what happened to him counts.
The kids in “Jude the Obscure.” Pretty brutal.
Leslie in Bridge to Terabithia.
Fantine and Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (Enjolras, my one true love, having already been mentioned).
Valentine Michael Smith, Stranger in a Strange Land.
Duh! The best literary death was that of Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird.
As a macabre little girl I remember really getting a kick out of the death of Myrtle Wilson in The Great Gatsby–remember, she’s the gas station owner’s wife who gets her left breast (mostly) torn off when Daisy mows her down in the big shiny Gatsby-mobile.
Yay! I get to be the first to mention Old Yeller?
And Old Dan & Little Ann. (Where The Red Fern Grows)
Lord Groan in Gormenghast. Ripped apart by owls, nasty.
Elpenor from the Odyssey who fell off the roof while drunk.
However, my favourite is definitely Danny from Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat
Yosef K. in Kafka’s the Trial. It wasn’t so much dramatic, but it just seemed so bizarre and pathetic.
Spoiler for Passage by Connie Willis:
The death of Dr. Joanna Lander. There’s all this buildup about her near-death research, and she seems to be developing a relationship of some kind with Dr. Wright, then she just suddenly gets stabbed and Dr. Wright has that wild idea to go look for her in her near-death experience… I sat there for pages saying “No way, she’s not really dead, she can’t be.”
Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web was the first to make me cry.
Phineas in A Separate Peace was the second.
Every other character in “The Jungle.”
Snort.
You’re right, that was a ludicrous mistake. I had just watched GFII last night so I guess my mind was a little off track. Apologies. :smack:
Berlioz in “The Master and Margarita.”
Bambi’s cousin Gobo, who has been raised by Man and thinks he is somehow special and that he can trust humans and they won’t harm him. He walks up to a hunter and finds out the hard way that this isn’t true.