Words From the Center: Berkeley Celebrates Literary Character Day

Students arrived in their costumes for Literary Character Day.

On Thursday, February 23, the Writing Center held its annual Literary Character Day, a day when students had the option to dress up as their favorite character from literature.

One student's favorite character was Madeleine.

Once again, students participated in this event in large numbers and with passion for the literature their costumes were based upon. The variety of costumes was on ideal display in the library at 12:50 during lunch, where costumes were paraded in front of students with each student describing their costume as well as their character.

Students gather at the library on Literary Character Day.

In the library, some great treats, from village inn pies to chip to cookies and cupcakes, were served, and those who dressed up received a special addition in the form of pizza. After everyone had eaten something, the costume parade started, but not before emcee George O. kicked things off with a witty literary pun. This pun was the first of many, which were sprinkled throughout the parade.

The emcee starts off the festivities.

Some costumes looking as if they had jumped right off the page, like Shannon A.'s and Katie O.'s appearance as Stanley Yelnats and Hector “Zero” Zeroni from the classic children’s novel Holes. On the inspiration of the costume, Shannon A. said she was inspired by a Holes project from elementary school that she came across one day while going through stuff in her house. Katie O., on the other hand, cites “divine inspiration.”

Students dressed as characters from Holes.

Costumes not only represented classics from American literature, such as Elly S.'s Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird and Megan M.'s, Marie P.'s, and Elizabeth K.'s ensemble from The Great Gatsby, but also there as a large representation for British and Swedish Literature.

One student dressed as Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird.

A group of stuents dress as characters from The Great Gatsby.

British costumes, shockingly lacking any Harry Potter representation, included Thomas P.'s Sherlock Holmes, TW B.'s Willy Wonka, and Mitchel K.'s Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A student dresses as a character from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Swedish costumes included Sarah C.'s Pippy Longstocking and Lizzie W.'s Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Students dress as characters from Swedish literature.

Some costumes operated on a more subtle, even metaphorical, level, including Derek C.'s Yellow Brick Road and Simon M.'s “Straw Man,” a pun on the rhetorical fallacy.

Students wore subtle costumes as well.

These two costumes were part of a much larger Wizard of Oz ensemble that was made up of students from Mr. Brandt’s B Block AP Language class.

Mr. Brandt's class dressed as Wizard of Oz characters.

The choice of The Wizard of Oz came after much deliberation on the part of the class as to what would be the best choice for a class ensemble, with discarded choices including the Socs and Greasers from The Outsiders and the conspirators from Julius Caesar. The group ended up walking away with the Best Ensemble prize, so the choice they went with was clearly the best one. The award for best American Literature Costume when to Calle K. as Glimmer from The Hunger Games, and best British Literature Costume went to Thomas P.'s Sherlock Holmes.