Character
Robert Ross' Monty Python Encyclopedia notes that Mr Praline has become a beloved figure within the Python canon. He has been discussed in Python-related literature as well as works not specifically dealing with the comedy team. Praline has an incredulous tone and exaggerated, somewhat high-pitched English accent with Scottish elements. Ross describes Praline's character as "slightly creepy", with a "British air of oppressed madness". Literature Through Film: Realism, Magic, and the Art of Adaptation (2004) holds Praline up as an example of a "Sancho-like realist". The 2006 book The Best British Stand-Up and Comedy Routines describes the disgruntled Mr Praline as "all plastered down hair and plastic raincoat".
Edward Slowik writes that in the "Fish Licence" sketch, Praline provides an example of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist concept of "bad faith". In this concept, a denial of individual freedom can result when a person fails to accept that past choices and behavior determine one's character. By declaring "I am not a loony!" when his actions have shown he is clearly insane, Praline exhibits Sartean "bad faith".
Read more about this topic: Mr Praline
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“I prize the purity of his character as highly as I do that of hers. As a moral being, whatever it is morally wrong for her to do, it is morally wrong for him to do. The fallacious doctrine of male and female virtues has well nigh ruined all that is morally great and lovely in his character: he has been quite as deep a sufferer by it as woman, though mostly in different respects and by other processes.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“Giving presents is a talent; to know what a person wants, to know when and how to get it, to give it lovingly and well. Unless a character possesses this talent there is no moment more annihilating to ease than that in which a present is received and given.”
—Pamela Glenconner (1871–1928)
“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)