2. The outcast is a villain archetype who is an
outsider who is neglected. He longs to fit in.
Tortured and unforgiving, he seeks revenge
and redemption, but it leads to sacrifice of
others.
3. In the Genesis story of Cain and Abel, Cain’s
offering is not favored by God as much as
Abel’s. Cain feels rejected and in order to
redeem himself, he kills his brother.
4. Grendel from Beowulf is stated to be an
outcast and a descendant of Cain in the text.
“Many doomed beings were descended from
Cain, including the detestable outcast
Grendel” (Beowulf 57)
He was evil, twisted, and corrupt.
5. In the 1740 fairytale, Beauty and the Beast,
the Beast is an outcast villain. He was rejected
by everyone because he was ugly. When
someone did come to his castle by accident,
he took him captive. Although the Beast turns
out good in the end, he starts out as a
rejected antagonist.
6. Heathcliff from the 1846 novel
Wuthering Heights is an outcast
because he was a gypsy until
adopted and named Heathcliff. He
is a vengeful outcast because he
was extracting revenge on the
others who made it so that he could
not be with Cathy. He also did
everything to his own advantage. He
married into a family only to get the
Wuthering Heights.
7. A modern day example of an outcast would
be Tom Riddle from the Harry Potter series.
As a boy, he is thought of as strange, so he is
left out. When he grows up, he becomes
Voldemort, a horrible villain who tortures and
kills many people.
8. Another modern day outcast would be Cady
Heron from the movie Mean Girls. She comes
to school as an outcast. She blends into the
population, all of whom is bullied by Regina
George. She becomes a vengeful antagonist
trying to destroy Regina. She ends up
replacing Regina as queen bee, becoming the
new person hated by everyone.
9. The villain archetype of the outcast can be
seen in all types of literature from all types of
cultures. From the bible to modern day pop
culture, the outcast is a popular villain
because of the way that they are a dynamic
and well developed antagonist character
archetype.
