Character
Tichy is a space explorer whose interplanetary experiences are chronicled in The Star Diaries. He also moves in scientific circles on Earth; he is invited to the Futurological Congress in Costa Rica and his endorsement and approval are sought by a number of researchers and inventors on the edge of their field, such as Doctor Diagoras who has developed an artificial intelligence which is independent of mankind, and Decantor who has invented an immortal soul.
Tichy himself is the narrator in all the stories in which he appears. Sometimes he is the main protagonist; sometimes he merely serves to introduce some other character who has a story to tell. He is unmarried, usually well-meaning, accident-prone, and commendably honest about his failures, which include (thanks to another unfortunate experience with time) the entire Universe as we know it.
Read more about this topic: Ijon Tichy
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded—a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)