by Opal Elaine Moyer

Created on: June 28, 2009   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

Much of literature mirrors the human experience. Authors create their characters in such a way as to make them as lifelike as possible, authentic. That is to say that they strive to make them multi-dimensional and lifelike. This is what makes fiction interesting; we come to care about the characters. Each one is an individual that handles their circumstances and survives them in their own way.

One great example of a resilient character of classic literature is the title character of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". Jane's life is a struggle from the beginning as an orphan in her maternal uncle's household. She suffered the cruelty of her aunt and cousins, after the passing of her uncle. Later, she spent the remainder of her childhood in a rigid Christian girl's school. Here, she faced not only more cruelty for a time, but also illness and death; however, she also experienced kindness. After teaching here for her first few years of adulthood, she decided to move on to a change. In the household of Mr. Rochester, she experienced a happy new life; she also found love and lost that love. As she moved on in her life again, she found herself in poverty, homeless and jobless. She persevered and soon found family that she'd never known and an inheritance, as well, Through all, she had accepted the changes in her life - the good and the bad - and she remained steadfast in her faith. Ultimately, she regained the love she'd once lost, and began a happy new, final chapter of her life.

Scarlett O'Hara, of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind," survived the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Unlike Jane Eyre, Scarlett relied on herself to get through the destruction, poverty, starvation, death and three marriages that she'd endured. Ultimately, she'd gotten through everything with the knowledge that "tomorrow is another day", leaving some realities to "think about tomorrow".

Both of these characters in literature overcame hardships in their own ways, but with resilience nonetheless. One relied on her faith in God, while the other relied on her own cunning and wits to pull her through. Everyone can relate to these characters on some level. There are a great many characters in literature that illustrate resilience; these are only two of them. Both are fine examples of how the human spirit can fall into hardships and always bounce back with positive outcomes.

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