7 Fictional Characters That You’ll Relate To If You’re An INFJ

1 October, 201913 November, 2019Marissa

What fictional characters do you relate to as an INFJ?

Just as we can describe real people using the Myers-Briggs® typology system, we can also type well-written fictional characters. Some of fiction’s most iconic and intriguing characters are INFJs and today we’re going to talk about seven that I think real-life INFJs will find relatable.

One great thing about looking at character personality types is that it helps us better understand people who have different types than we do. Fictional INFJs can serve as examples for what real-life INFJs might be like, and also show how much variation can exist between individuals with the same type.

The things that makes INFJs such great fictional characters are some of the same things that make them such interesting people. Though the rarest personality type on the planet, INFJs are fairly common in fiction. They’re thoughtful, introspective characters with a unique way of looking at the world and a keen interest in other people.

Alyosha Karamazov

It’s fascinating to read the narrator of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov discuss the story’s hero Alexi Karamazov (more often called by his nickname Alyosha/Alesha). He spends most of the introduction apologizing for presenting readers with such an unusual hero. “He is by no means a great man,” the narrator explains, but he is doubtless “a strange man, even an odd one.” He was strange “from the cradle,” growing up a quiet child preoccupied by something inside him while at the same time loving people. I’m sure many INFJs can relate to that in their own childhoods — liking other people but being too preoccupied by their inner worlds to be considered sociable.

As the story progresses, we see Alyosha dreads conflict with a loathing that I think all INFJs (and the other FJ types as well) can relate to. We see him weeping when others are hurt, displaying the empathy that’s so much a part of real-life INFJs. We see him make social blunders in an effort to make everyone happy and at peace, all with an INFJ’s insistence on working toward harmony in all situations. Like so many INFJs, he’s sensitive, emotional, indecisive on certain things (though quite decisive in others), and isn’t afraid to appear weak so long as he’s being true to his beliefs. Read more →

Classics Club Update (1/2)

7 August, 20196 August, 2019Marissa

Almost five years ago, I committed to reading 50 classic works of literature in 5 years. I’m starting to worry I won’t actually finish my Classics Club list by the August 18 deadline, despite the fact that I’ve already read more than 50 books this year alone. They just haven’t been the right books for the list (even with swapping out some of the titles for ones I’m more interested in now).

I’m not out of time yet, though, so I’m going to keep trying. Part of the agreement includes blogging about each title, but since this isn’t really a book blog I’m not going to write a whole post about each book I’ve read. Instead, here are a collection of my thoughts on six of the twelve books that were still on my list.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been on my list since the beginning. I’d read some of her mother’s work and had seen an on-stage version of Frankenstein as well as a modernized YouTube series, but this was my first time reading the original novel. It wasn’t entirely what I’d expected, though the format is familiar from reading other books from this time period. The story is told as if Victor Frankenstein is sharing his research (along with a cautionary tale) to the explorer who found him pursuing his created creature toward the North Pole.

Probably the thing that fascinated me most was the role Frankinstein’s psychology played in the story. Published in 1818 — 38 years before Sigmund Freud was even born — Mary Shelley explores the idea that Frankinstein’s path was shaped by his environment and his childhood as much as by the conscious choices he made. Did he make himself into the monster that created this creature? Or did was he a tragic product of his past? The story seems unsure and leaves us to answer that question for ourselves. Read more →

The Awakening and This Side of Paradise

17 April, 201915 April, 2019Marissa

I’ve been trying to get caught-up on my reading for my Classics Club book list that I started almost 5 years ago. This also involves blogging about the books I’m reading in the hope that we can spread our love for classic literature all over the internet. Interestingly, the last two books I read have some similar themes and it made sense to group them together. Which is good, since book reviews aren’t the main focus of this blog.

This Side Of Paradise

This Side of Paradise was F. Scott Fitsgerald’s debut novel (published in 1920). Its publication famously helped Fitzgerald gain Zelda Sayre’s hand in marriage because he was convinced he could win her back if he became a published novelist. It must have worked, since they married just 8 days after the novel’s first printing. The initial print run of 3,000 copies sold out in three days. Read more →

Lust, Murder, and Deception from Shakespeare to Today

13 February, 201913 February, 2019Marissa

I know this blog isn’t really about literature and reading, but I just finished two Shakespeare plays that I can’t resist writing about. I hope some of you will find this an interesting digression from our usual topics of Christianity, Myers-Briggs, and personal growth. And if not, don’t worry — I’ll get back to my more usual type of posts this weekend.

Four and a half years ago, I committed to reading 50 Classics in 5 years. You’d think someone who read 74 books just last year wouldn’t have any trouble doing that, but I let other books distract me too much and I have some catching-up to do before August 18 arrives. Today’s article is about two of the four Shakespeare plays on my classics club list (click here to read my thoughts on the other two).

These last two plays are The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice and Measure for Measure. On the surface they’re very different stories, but I was surprised to find they touch on the same core themes. Lust, murder, and deception lie at the center of both plays, and these topics are handled in a way that puts me in mind of things happening today in our modern society.

A Tale of Two Saviors

30 January, 201928 January, 2019Marissa

Do you ever wish someone loved you enough to die for you?

Not that you’d actually want them to die, of course. But you’d just like to know that someone cared enough about you that they would give up their life to keep you safe and well.

I was thinking about that last week while reading A Tale of Two Cities. I’d planned on reading two of Charles Dickens’s books that I’d never read before for my Classics Club list, but ended up swapping out Bleak House for re-reading A Tale of Two Cities. I liked it so well when I read it 12 or 13 years ago in high school that I wanted to see if it still captured my interested.

I think it’s safe to say this book is just as powerful now as it was back then, considering the last few chapters left me in tears. I love books that are so real, so well written that they can make me cry and let me tell you there were plenty of that by the last sentence. Read more →

The Curious Case of the INFJ Hero

3 December, 201815 September, 2019Marissa

Today we’re going to talk about INFJ heroes in fiction, especially male heroes. But before we get to that, let’s talk about Russian literature for a moment. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky opens with an apologetic explanation from the narrator about his hero, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov. Here are a few highlights:

“While I do call Alexei Fyodorovich my hero, still, I myself know that he is by no means a great man …

One thing, perhaps, is rather doubtless: he is a strange man, even an odd one. But strangeness and oddity will sooner harm than justify any claim to attention …

If I, that is, the biographer himself, think that even one novel may, perhaps, be unwarranted for such a humble and indefinite hero, then how will it look if I appear with two; and what can explain such presumption on my part?” (p.3-4, Pevear/Volokhonsky translation)

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, Alyosha is an INFJ (most characters and the narrator use this nickname throughout the novel. In the Cyrillic alphabet, Alyosha is two letters shorter than Alexei, which makes this something like calling a man named Robert “Bob”). And I suspect that it’s his personality type that makes the narrator so worried about how people will respond to his hero.

It’s not that there aren’t other INFJ heroes in fiction. Just take a look at my post about 10 Stories You’ll Relate To If You’re An INFJ if you want some examples. Jane Eyre, Amélie, Yoda, and Atticus Finch are all INFJs in fiction who play a hero role. But even though there are male characters on this list, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if Alyosha was a woman with all the same personality characteristics the narrator wouldn’t have felt the need to apologize for her.