History and Methodology of the Fictional Left-handers list
The list was inspired by Chris McManus’s Right Hand, Left Hand, where he stated that there were very few left-handed characters in books (actually, he said that he'd been unable to identify left-handed heroes in serious literature, but that was the thrust of his message). This got me thinking, and I started looking, which in turn lead to this. According to my most recent count, my list is up to forty two left-handers - not bad!
From observation, although the ratio of fictional characters with described
handness is in no way as high as the approximate 10:1 ratio you would expect
from the world's demographic, they are not quite as under-represented as McManus
suggests. My real interest now is in trying to reverse engineer why these
characters were modelled as left-handed, and also looking at how these
left-handers are portrayed. My conclusion is that in the vast majority of cases
the left-handedness is a plot gimmick of some sort, to strengthen the plot. The
skill with which these gimmicks are enacted varies wildly (from
pitiful to
fairly sustained and skilful).
However, some characters are just left-handed, no questions asked.
Methodology of Data Collection
As well as my own reading (which is heavily biased, since I read primarily science fiction and fantasy, although I do read other stuff), I have posted an open and continuing request for information on the Internet Book Database of Fiction Fora (here and here). This has provided most of my information - thanks guys!
I have performed a search (in June 2005) of the
Project Gutenberg archives (using
google.com - search keys: "site:gutenberg.org left-handed" and "site:gutenberg.org
left-hander"). This garnered a number of characters from older books, but I
chose to ignore those left-handed fist fighters that seemed to have a appearance
of less than about a page so that I could complete the search with in an
acceptable length of time. I also searched
Project Gutenberg of Australia, using google.com.au and the same search
keys.
Naturally, I welcome casual surfers to giving me citations also. :-)
Note on quotation and citation
My citations are intended to serve the dual purpose of enabling me to locate the
quotes myself, and to allow others to confirm the accuracy of my work. I
don't use the standard academic styles because a) they don't provide enough
information to locate the quote within the book and b) I probably would get it
all wrong.
The quotes themselves are intended to give an idea of the context, so some of
them are fairly long - hopefully they do not infringe upon copyright laws (under
British law at least, I don't think any of my extracts constitute more than a
'substantial part'). If any copyright holders disagree with my interpretation,
please contact me, and I'll deal with it as promptly as I can.
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