# Reading > General Literature >  Stories in which the hero doesn't get the girl

## Diceman

Goodfolks,

I completed Dickens' Great Expectations recently. As those of you have read the novel are aware - and those who haven't, take a SPOILER WARNING - Pip spends the whole novel lusting after Estella, but in the end doesn't live happily ever after with her. Actually, the ending is somewhat ambiguous, but the case that Pip ends up with Estella is never explicitly stated.

This got me thinking: in what other novels does the hero (heroine) spend the entire story lusting after the girl (guy), but not land her (him) in the end?

These came immediately to mind:

Wuthering Heights
the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
Goat Song by Poul Anderson - a short story based upon the above.

A few others with ambiguous endings - in which the guy doesn't actually get the girl, but the matter is left for the reader to determine - include:

The French Lieutenant's Woman
The Magus

... both by the recently departed John Fowles. Curiously he claimed "Great Expectations" was an influence in the introduction to the revised edition of The Magus.

Can anyone name some more storied in which the guy doesn't get the girl?

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## B-Mental

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

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## crisaor

The ones that come to my mind right now:

The story of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere.
Frankenstein
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Hamlet

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## Shea

Gone with the Wind? But she's fine with it in the end.

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## caspian

İ think it usually happens in French literature, especially in Balzacs stories.

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## Scheherazade

_The Great Gatsby_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald

_The English Patient_ by Michael Ondaatje

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## Anna Seis

This got me thinking: in what other novels does the hero (heroine) spend the entire story lusting after the girl (guy), but not land her (him) in the end?

There would be too many, but I feel affection for these:
The town, by William Faulkner
Absalon, Absalon, by William Faulkner
The Gambler, by Dostoyevskii
The Idiot, by Dostoyevskii
The Kozeks, by Tolstoi
Now I think there must be a reason why I am always reading aboud deceiving tales of love

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## starrwriter

> There would be too many, but I feel affection for these:
> The Kozeks, by Tolstoi ...


You forgot "The Kreutzer Sonnata" by Tolstoi. Although the main character got the girl and even married her, it was to his everlasting regret.

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## Anna Seis

> You forgot "The Kreutzer Sonnata" by Tolstoi. Although the main character got the girl and even married her, it was to his everlasting regret.


I must confess, dear Starrwriter, that I still haven't read the Kreutzer sonnata, even though I like Tolstoi and had readed a biography of him, from a French author whose name I can't recall by now. The piano sonnatas of Bethoven, that Tolstoi loved so much and that are so magnificals, were so atractive to him that he thought there was some kind of sin in that affection. Sonia, his wife, also felt the fascination for music, and for a younger pianist, too. I love Beethoven Sonnatas and have great expectations about the Tolstoi's book. I shall read it in holidays.  :Frown:   :Frown:

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## Chinaski

Any of the 'Arturo Bandini' books by John Fante. Bandini has a love hate relationship with women due to his own self loathing. Great books - I'd start with 'Wait Until the Spring Bandini'. A bit like a darker Steinbeck, sort of, perhaps!

Crisaor - don't really get the Hamlet connection! Hamlet pushes Ophelia away (due to his feigned/real madness/hatred of 'frail' womankind/whatever - God it's a complex play!), and certainly doesn't spend the play pursuing her!

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## Pensive

> _The Great Gatsby_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
> 
> _The English Patient_ by Michael Ondaatje


I watched the movie: English Patient. It made me cry a lot but I loved the plot.

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## mtpspur

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo---though it appears Quasimodo buries himself with the gypsy girl after her hanging.

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## RobinHood3000

_Thousand Cranes_ by Yasunari Kawabata...

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## loveliterature20

Gone With The Wind~~~~~~~~~~ ambiguous ending

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## cateye515

Phantom of The Opera...depending on your pov

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## subterranean

Jude the Obscure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :Smile:

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## WaxDoll

The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James) - *sniffs*
The Mysteries of Udolpho (Ann Radcliffe) - He's not the hero, but still a good guy.

Does it count if the heroine doesn't get the guy?

Villette (Charlotte Bronte) - It's ambiguous, but from all the not-so-subtle hints, it's pretty obvious (no matter how much I try and deny it) what happens.

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## Layla

Tess D'urbervilles-Thomas Hardy
End of an Affair-Graham Greene
Thais-Anatole France
Anna Karenina- Lev Tolstoi
All among my favorites......

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## RobinHood3000

_Like Water For Chocolate_ by Laura Esquivel -- the right guy doesn't get the girl.

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## jane,Eyre,I,Lov

Harry Potter

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