Kid Literary Characters And Their Grown-Up Counterparts

From Flavorwire:

We recently discovered something we didn’t know about the Steig Larsson books — that he modeled his introverted computer hacker protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, on childhood favorite Pippi Longstocking. When delivering his Millenium series to his publisher, Larsson wrote, “My point of departure was what Pippi Longstocking would be like as an adult. Would she be called a sociopath because she looked upon society in a different way and has no social competence?” Well maybe, but we have to agree with Slate‘s analysis that cheery, delightfully odd Pippi Longstocking is not a believable younger version of the tough-as-nails Lisbeth Salander. Nevertheless, the idea got us to thinking about other literary legacies, and whether any of our favorite young characters might have grown up into other, older literary figures that we know and love. Click through to check out the pairs that we came up with, and let us know who you think would grow up to be who in the comments.

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Comments

[MBGarcia]

04:11 PM on 01/19/2012

Um..HuffPo...that's not "Elizabeth Bennett"...that's "Jo March." That's the scene where she and Mr. Bhaer go to the opera in the 1994 version of Little Women.

[YABookShelf]

11:24 AM on 01/05/2012

Really, Flavorwire? Have you even read Jane Eyre? Because not that there is anything wrong with Philip Pullman's character (I haven't actually read The Golden Compass, so I can't comment on it), but if you'd read Charlotte Bronte's novel, then you would know that she starts off as a very young child and grows up over the course of the novel to become the adult figure. Why would there have to be a "strong match" with anyone. Lyra Belacqua or otherwise?

[Jill Murray]

10:36 AM on 01/05/2012

In the Anne books, Anne of Green Gables grows up to write, teach, get married, have kids, become a grandmother, and live through World War I. She has a rich, full life without "becoming" a Jane Austen character.

[MBGarcia]

04:12 PM on 01/19/2012

This is absolutely true. I thought I was the only one who's read all those.

[Whitney Stahl]

12:37 PM on 01/04/2012

that is winona ryder as jo march not elizabeth bennet.

[HermaO]

06:32 AM on 01/02/2012

1. If you hadn't gathered that Larsson's inspiration for Salander was Pippi Longstocking, you probably haven't read his books.
2. Lyra to become Jane Eyre? You definitely haven't read at least one of those.

[ESerafina42]

08:00 PM on 01/01/2012

Harry Potter moves to Chicago and becomes Harry Dresden.

And Lyra Belacqua would NEVER call any man her "master," nor would Jane Eyre lie, and Lyra starts out, at least, as a consummate liar.

[Matt Blanc]

11:12 AM on 12/31/2011

Harry Potter grows up to be Gandalf. And Huck Finn grows up to be Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name. (Both suffer disappointments in love, evidently.)

[Smirk]

09:52 PM on 12/30/2011

Nancy Drew and Kay Scarpetta.

[standish]

09:35 PM on 12/29/2011

I think Holden Caufield would have grown up to be more like Dean Moriarity. As for Holly Golightly, the Audrey Hepburn film is a sanitized, well scrubbed version of a character who was basically a high class call girl and gangster's moll who, in the end, fled the country to avoid being arrested and was never heard from again.

[Jeffrey Bryson]

01:28 AM on 01/01/2012

Still fits Eloise, though.

[bookbroad]

06:13 PM on 12/29/2011

That's a photo of Winona Ryder as Jo March, not elizabeth Bennet (who she's never played), BTW.

[BowlingForRevenge]

04:57 PM on 12/29/2011

Food for thought is always welcome...

[Scoutxx]

04:44 PM on 12/29/2011

I never saw Eloise growing up to be a prostitute like Holly Go Lightly, but that definitely changes the books for me.