In the wake of the killing-off of our beloved Mark Darcy in Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding, here are our top ten greatest deaths in fiction. Be warned, the following article contains spoilers
Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina Photo: UPI
1. Anna in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1878)
It all goes wrong for the heroine of Leo Tolstoy’s tragic novel, when she gets ditched by her lover, ostracised by society, and prevented from seeing her son by her cuckolded husband. Distraught, Anna leaps in front of a train travelling at a rate of knots.
2. Lavinia in William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (1588-1593)
In Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy, the only daughter of Titus is dealt a poor hand (no pun intended). Twenty-one of her brothers are killed in battle before the play even begins, but Lavinia’s fate is also pretty terrible. Raped in a pit, her tongue is cut out and hands cut off to prevent her revealing the identity of her attackers. Revenge is served up – quite literally – when Titus Andronicus bakes her two rapists in a pie and feeds them to their mother, and, before the feasting crowd, he ends Lavinia’s
misery by breaking her neck.
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misery by breaking her neck.
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