When a writer starts a story or a novel, the inspiration to create these characters will sometimes come from people close to the author's environment.
Beyond those great literary works based on real events, conceived as a biography of illustrious personalities or even starring characters from the writer's own family or circles, there are the following literary characters that existed in real life that until now we thought that they only lived locked in the pages of those great classics.
Severus Snape
When JK Rowling had to give life to the Hogwarts faculty, the author explored her own school life until she found her science teacher, John nettleship, whose short mane and aquiline nose would match the description of Severus Snape and, also, with the successful appearance of the actor Alan Rickman, in charge of giving life to the most ambiguous professor of the Harry Potter saga on the big screen Unfortunately, Nettleship died in 2011 of cancer.
Robinson Crusoe
Scottish Sailor Alexander Selkirk It was abandoned by its crew after a mutiny on a desert island in the Pacific 700 kilometers from Chile. After surviving in it for four years and four months, Selkirk was rescued and brought back to civilization, where one day he met a certain Daniel Defoe to whom he would tell his story without knowing that he would make her one of the great adventure books of history in 1719. Selkirk spent his last days surrounded by cats in a cave.
Long John Silver
The poet William Henley was a man with a big smile, a red beard and a leg amputated to the knee from a childhood outbreak of tuberculosis. And yes, he was also one of the closest friends of Robert Louis Stevenson, an author who was inspired by his comrade when giving life to one of the most famous pirates of literature and most remembered character from Treasure Island.
The colonel
We all know that the stories of Gabriel García Márquez They drank from an inspiration from their own life, from those images that marked the beginning of a new book and, also, from people close to Gabo's life. Although the love story of his parents would inspire that of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza in Love in the time of cholera, the most direct reference is that of the Nobel's own grandfather, Nicolás Márquez, who spent days and days in Aracataca (or Macondo) waiting for the subsidy of an ex-combatant in the War of the Thousand Days, the real sketch that would give life to the protagonist of El coronel no tiene quien le escriba.
Moby Dick
The recent movie In the Heart of the Sea starring Chris Hemsworth It was inspired by the true story of the Essex whaler, shot down in 1820 by an 18-meter long albino sperm whale whose impact forced them to sink to the coast of Chile. To this must be added an article from an American magazine that, in 1839, discovered to the world the presence of the same animal, baptized as Mocha Dick in reference to the island of Mocha. In 1851, Herman Melville would publish the famous novel that we all know today.
These literary characters that existed in real life confirm the inspiration of those authors who found in various events, friends, teachers and even grandparents the necessary reference to give life to that protagonist of whom, surely, everyone would be proud. Or, at least, almost all of them, since the Selkirk that inspired Robinson Crusoe stopped speaking to Defoe after learning that his story had become one of the best novels of the XNUMXth century.
What other literary characters based on real people do you know?