Autistic/aspergers characters in fiction?

Post Reply New Topic

I was re-reading War and Peace (I read it out loud to to my husband one winter and now I'm doing so to him and my boys), and I think I recognize the character Vera Rostov as an Aspie. She's described as cold and blunt and tells people the truth even though it's unpleasant. Her family treats her like she's being mean on purpose and say awful things back to her. She apparently has trouble reading faces and moods; her mother tells her that she "doesn't know when she isn't wanted". Tolstoy describes her facial expression as "cold".

Dostoevsky, in Demons, has a character who runs out even in the coldest weather wearing only a shift. People try to dress her, but when they do she pulls everything off down to her shift. She sleeps in doorways, wanders out if people try to keep her indoors even though she has her own room in a house, when people give her food she'll give it away to the first person she sees, whether beggar or fine lady, and when people give her money she puts it in the alms box in front of the church. When people visit her they don't talk to her directly, but if they say somethng about her she responds. She'll do things like run to the front of the church while service is in session and giggle at the ladies' finery. It's like Dostoevsky is describing classical autism and severe PDD in the mid nineteenth century.

Philip Jose Farmer's book The Man who Used the Universe has an obviously Aspergers main character. The man is very high-functioning and highly intelligent. The only problem I have with this book is the fact that he felt the need to make his mother cold, neglectful and hateful.

Do you know any other examples?

I know the idea of Oliver Twist being autistic was basically rejected before here on WP, I bring it up again, since he is my favourite fictional character right now.

One example I definitely know wasn't autism despite a lot of people saying so was the protagonist of the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. The author has stated that he has gotten irritated with invitations to talk about autism and has regretted asperger's syndrome appearing on the front cover. The boy even sounds nothing like me. At times it veers off talking about things people would believe about autism if only given its reputation and at others feels like a caricature, a particularly ignorant caricature. But given how people insist it is an interpretation of asperger's syndrome I can see how it can appear offensive without the author meaning any offense.

Sherlock Holmes. According to dr. Watson, he's knowledge is deep in a relatively narrow field of interests. This idea has some popularity, as I see.

There are a lot of examples on the designated thread, I think:
Fictional Characters with undiagnosed Autism or Asperger's



This particular example it could be a description of a person with mental retardation or schizophrenia, or personality change related to epilepsy, or something else. You can't always presume ASD is the case.

As a huge Holmes fan, I say: maybe. He lacks more AS traits than he possesses: he has no trouble making eye contact, he has no sensory issues, he has no difficulty communicating, he's typically aware of when he's saying something considered rude, he frequently uses sarcasm, he's very good at reading people, and he has no auditory processing problems. The only AS traits that apply are his obsessive interest in a narrow set of subjects, his disdain for social formalities, and his utter lack of interest in cases he finds boring. If he's on the spectrum at all, it's a very mild case.

However, it's Arthur Conan Doyle's stories I'm talking about. When it comes to portrayals in film and television, it varies. Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey, and Benedict Cumberbatch all seem to have given their versions of Holmes more identifiable AS traits. There's a terrific episode of the Brett series in which a woman asks him to kiss her, and he sincerely replies, "I don't know how." There's a scene in Downey's film that shows off his sensory overload problem, and Cumberbatch openly describes himself as a "high functioning sociopath" and is a train wreck when it comes to social interaction.

Last edited by Jory on 24 Jul 2011, 5:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

'The Way Things Look To Me' by Roopa Farooki, has one of the main characters, Yasmin, as an aspie.
It is a contemporary book and quite interesting.

Considering that Dostoevsky himself was epileptic and Prince Myshkin of The Idiot also suffered from epilepsy, this could very well be the case.

Thanks for the thread link. I'll go take a look.

There's a TV show in the UK called Casualty, it's a typical hospital drama really and I only watch it because it's one of the few times my family do anything together. Anyway, one of the doctors (his name is Doctor Keogh) has a few Asperger's traits: he doesn't recognise faces; he has poor social skills, prefering the company of his dog; he's often overly blunt, and doesn't understand why this offends patients; he only accepts "interesting" cases, even if the ED is overcrowded; and he doesn't understand people's motivations for their behaviour.

This is a list of characters I think may have asperger's
I'll start with the comedy characters as this syndrome is fairly common within the genre;

Frank Spencer (Some Mother's Do 'Ave Em) - there are some subjects he finds difficult to understand; in the episode Fathers' Clinic, Dr Powell asks him where Frank thinks his soft spot is located. Frank replies 'how do you mean?'. He is very sensitive where other people touch him (in Cliffhanger, Frank's interviewer reaches his hand for a mouse trap on Frank's jacket. Frank thinks he is touching his butt and responds 'I'm a married man') and when they look at him whilst doing something personal (in The RAF Reunion, while Frank gets changed under his quilt, a man looks at him and he tells him to stop that). He hates seeing 'rude' pictures, but despite his sensitivity towards sex, he once confused a photograph (believed to be a porn photo) as a holiday snap, just because it had a bucket & spade on it.

Both Rik & Neil from The Young Ones. Neil takes things very literally; examples include Neil asking 'who's Bill?' when Mike refers to a pile of letters 'they're probably bills', Vyvyan telling the others that his mom was a shoplifter to which Neil replied 'she doesn't look strong enough to lift shops', and his mom asking if Neil made his bed to which Neil replies 'No I bought it.'
Rik on the other hand over-expresses his political views. He seems to know what he's referring to when he talks about Maggie Thatcher, but constantly mentioning political words at the wrong time i.e. 'fascist'. One of the so-called fascists is a woman at the DHS who only tells Rik that he came to the wrong place to send a telegram. He is quite big-headed, hypocritical and throws an amount of tantrums, at one time when he and Neil are revising for University Challenge and Rik over-stresses when he answers a question incorrectly. Neil then gives him the answer (as Rik ordered him to) and Rik claims that he knew it and panics outloud.

PC Frank Gladstone (Thin Blue Line). He often shares his past experiences with his fellow cops, but usually includes some personal and inappropriate subjects through his conversations.

Stan Laurel's self-named character in Laurel & Hardy.

The Three Stooges.

Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers). It is shown by his behavior towards the guests and his obsession of attracting upper-class guests.

Mr Bean


And the rest;

Raymond from Rain Man.

John Hammond (Jurassic Park); I'm quite sure he shows a few signs of the syndrome. When he built his theme park, he was very optimistic that it would attract a large audience, but was cheerfully unaware that the island would be too dangerous to visit as stated by Doctors Grant, Sattler and Ian Malcolm. Though he did show some awareness when his children and Grant were missing and after a debate she had with Ellie Sattler (occasionally, he defends his park, blaming the incident entirely on Dennis Nedry)

Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men). Personally I wasn't a huge fan of the film, but there was something in this guy that made me think he showed some signs.

Yes, never said to my mum but I thought that straight away- he does seem very Aspie-ish
My suggestion is Jasper Hale (Whitlock) from the twilight saga- a lot of his Aspie traits could be put down to his past life but still. He is very reserved around people he doesn't know, he lets his wife (Alice) speak for him a lot of the time, he is very stuck in his ways concerning his clothes and behaviour-which do look odd in a modern setting- he is very practical without thinking about the consequences to others. He is impulsive too- don't know if this is a real Aspie trait though, or if it's a real kid thing. He always uses references to militarism in his longer areas of speech and he is only entierly comfortable with the one person who will always understand him. On the obvious downside he has his pathokinisis (able to feel and manipulate other emotions) which kinda throws it a bit...

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Art, Writing, and Music]

Howard Roark.

H.P. Lovecraft, who not only was probably an Aspie in real life, but also in works of fiction in which he's a character, such as Pulptime, Lovecraft's Book, and Archainum.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I was watching the entire series of "ER" a little while back and I think you could say that the following shows clear signs of Aspergers.

• Robert 'Rocket' Romano (Played by Paul McCrane)
• Archibald Morris (Played by Scott Grimes)