Try the Proust Questionnaire to really get to know your characters
The Proust Questionnaire is a set of personality-revealing questions popularised by French writer Marcel Proust. It originated from a popular 19th-century parlor game but became famous after Proust answered a version of it in two different instances of his life—once as a teenager and later as an adult. The questionnaire is popularly used in interviews by publications like The Guardian and Vanity Fair.
Use the questionnaire and answering them from the point of view of your characters can help define their personality, desires, fears, and motivations. By answering in your character’s voice, you can also refine their way of thinking and speaking.
Here are the questions:
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
What is your greatest fear?
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Which living person do you most admire?
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your current state of mind?
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Which living person do you most despise?
What is the quality you most like in a man?
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
When and where were you happiest?
Which talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Where would you most like to live?
What is your most treasured possession?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What is your favorite occupation?
What is your most marked characteristic?
What do you most value in your friends?
Who are your favorite writers?
Who is your hero of fiction?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Has its origins in a parlour game popularized (though not created) by the French novelist Marcel Proust.
Often used to interview celebrities, with the idea that by answering these questions, an individual will reveal his or her true nature.
So you may want to pretend you're "interviewing" your characters.
It is interesting to note that the questionnaire was devised to reveal a person’s ‘true’ nature, or true self. The idea of a true or authentic self is now rather old-fashioned in cultural theory.
The 35 Questions
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
What is your greatest fear?
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Which living person do you most admire?
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your current state of mind?
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Which living person do you most despise?
What is the quality you most like in a man?
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
When and where were you happiest?
Which talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Where would you most like to live?
What is your most treasured possession?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What is your favorite occupation?
What is your most marked characteristic?
What do you most value in your friends?
Who are your favorite writers?
Who is your hero of fiction?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Who are your heroes in real life?
What are your favorite names?
What is it that you most dislike?
What is your greatest regret?
How would you like to die?
What is your motto?
"Multiple" Selves
Modern theories of the self routinely talk about human beings having ‘multiple’ or ‘plural’ selves, rather than simply one, real self.
And it seems an accurate observation that we manifest different selves according to what we do, and when.
Example: The self that goes to a football match might be a different self to the one that enjoys gardening or watching a film. The self that we show with children might be a different one from the self we exhibit at work, or with friends.
This can make us contradictory creatures.
As the American poet Walt Whitman once said, ‘I contain multitudes.’
It also means that we might give different answers to the above questions according to who we are with, and what mood we are in.
It doesn’t make one set of answers more or less true than the other. They are all equally valid, just different, and appropriate in different contexts.
A "True" Self
According to the philosopher Richard Rorty, the self is ‘a network of beliefs, desires, and emotions…a person just is that network’.
And of course, our selves are often shaped by where we live, and when we live.
Would you be the same person if you had been born one hundred years ago, or even twenty years from now? Would you be the same person if you were born in Africa, Asia, America? If the answer is no, then what might that say about the notion of a ‘true’ self?
Many of you speak different languages. Are you the same ‘self’ or does your identity, even your values, change a little depending on the language you are speaking and the culture you are living in?
When children are growing up, they often try on different selves and experiment with different identities, sometimes following friends, fashions, and seeing what fits. Those selves and identities perhaps never remain wholly fixed, but it’s probably true that they become more stable as we get older.
In school, we are always trying to discover what new selves students can be. Do they have a musical self they want to pursue, an artistic or sporting self that might be hidden? A mathematical, literary, or linguistic self, ready to blossom?
It’s all part of trying to maximise each student’s human potential and unravelling their manifold talents.
Liberating our "Inner" Selves
We all grow and develop as people. And we change at different rates, which is why relationships can alter over time.
If we have regrets in life, it may be because we have failed to follow or exploit one of these opportunities to become a different, or at least a more varied self.
While we must all endure physical lockdown at the moment, it may be that mentally we can still flourish, liberating our inner selves, and as part of that pursue an untapped talent, a subdued passion, a neglected desire.
This is not to suffer an identity crisis, nor to risk fracturing our personalities.
Rather it is to enrich our existence, to enhance our capacity as human beings, to make us feel more fully alive – and ultimately to celebrate the potential ‘locked’ within our many selves.
What is your idea of perfect happiness? I think happiness is the absence of all things negative.
VANITY FAIR
November 2013 Issue
The Proust Questionnaire: Catherine O’Hara
The Canadian-American actress has starred in numerous films on her own and with Christopher Guest’s troupe. Appearing this fall in the comedy A.C.O.D., she admits she considers Kim Kardashian her top “fictional” heroine.
What is your idea of perfect happiness? I think happiness is the absence of all things negative.
What is your greatest fear? That the Internet and every device that gets you there are designed to distract you while eradicating what was once known as privacy. Do we really need to know where you went, who you were with, what you ate, who said what, how much you drank, and where you woke up? I guess the upside might be: no more call for jury duty.
Which living person do you most admire? I admire anyone who uses their gifts wisely and seems grateful for the opportunity.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? My gift for wasting precious time.
What is the trait you most deplore in others? Selfishness, especially masquerading as altruism.
What is your greatest extravagance? My cottage, in Ontario, Canada.
What is your favorite journey? I just love hearing about the “journeys” award-show winners mention in their thank-you speeches. Don’t you?
What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Temperance.
On what occasion do you lie? I lie when I don’t want to look stupid.
What do you dislike most about your appearance? My appearance thinks I’m a lot older than I am.
Which living person do you most despise? Anyone who condemns another human being. And the a-hole who stole my Autoharp.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “Sorry.” But I’m a Canadian Catholic woman, so I’m hardwired to apologize.
What is your greatest regret? Testing out the sunlamp my big brother found in the garbage.
What or who is the greatest love of your life? My family.
Which talent would you most like to have? It would be cool to know how to fix anything.
What is your current state of mind? Bliss. I’m at my cottage.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My procrastinati. . . . sorry, wait a minute. . . .
If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? I’ve got to believe God is into recycling. I’d like to come back in the body of a much more evolved person who has lovely, thick hair and skin that tans.
Where would you like to live? Wherever I am.
What is your favorite occupation? Writing and acting. Improvisation lets you do both.
What is the quality you most like in a man? All the classic “manly” qualities, but with an enlightened respect for women and children.
What is the quality you most like in a woman? A sense of humor, especially about themselves.
What do you most value in your friends? They’re wonderful people who seem to like me!
Who are your favorite writers? Flannery O’Connor, Steve Martin, Mary Margaret O’Hara, and Joel and Ethan Coen.
Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Kim Kardashian.
Who are your heroes in real life? That human on the phone who cuts through all the corporate bull (even though they’re being recorded for quality assurance) and actually helps you.
What are your favorite names? Margaret, Marcus, and Jojo Chintoh.
How would you like to die? Laughing, surrounded by my old grandchildren, who are telling me to “let go, already, Grandma!”
Self satisfaction and affordability
Dark and spiders
Selfish fearful complacency
Rude inconsiderate chide
No Man
Life
Anxious moments often
Never enough
Passion
Passion
Thank you kindly
Whenever is anyone happiest?
For making money
Living this long is it’s own accomplishment
Once more on the cycle, a child
In the moment
My life
–solitude, in that truest of isolations away from all
Motion–the conqueror of misery
Of which i choose to adorn myself
Passionate honesty reigns paramount
What is a writer that reads less than one should?
Who is a hero amidst novels of moral questionability?
What man does not see glimmers of their traits in those before?
What is an idol against the self?
Dishonest betrayal is the lowest of lows
Yet complacency held me all the same, in the same place
Let me pass like pages, turned to a new leaf, worn and weathered with love
I’m fit, I’m funny, I’m a bit of a dummy
@env0writes C.Buck
Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0
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Photo by my friend Mika
