This paper investigates the function of the literary character. It begins by rethinking its fictionality, bringing the character into ontological equality with the one writing (about) it. This process begins by extracting a character from the narrative into which it was born, and transferring it to a field that confronts its life story with the life story of the reader. This may somewhat balance the strict hierarchy of flesh and blood beings managing the lives of other beings, by placing the character’s conditions in the political-social debate on matters of freedom, justice and ethics. That is actually what happened when I met Michael K, the protagonist of J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K. K was born with a harelip, as was I. This defect has been a fruitful key in a critical reading that placed me between the animal and the human, hanging by the frayed thread called “lip/language” (same word in Hebrew).
With Arendt’s notions of “freedom” I will try to explain why the literary character is located outside any constitution, and to consider it as a rightless being. “Characters Rights” can be a discourse which relates to research of singular encounters with characters, thus turning our attention to injustices that we have no access to, and especially to those who cannot be grouped due to a characteristic easily defined as a common denominator, such as skin color or type of sexual organ, as used in the field of human rights.