Crazy Jealous Guy / Literature

Crazy Jealous Guys in Literature.

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• In The Alien Series, this is Kitty's type, although she's not sure if she's attracted to them or they're attracted to her.
  • Martini gets upset when Kitty spends time alone with other men and tries to make her change her ringtone, "My Best Friend," for her male best friend.
  • Kitty's ex-boyfriend Brian was so clingy and demanding that she dumped him for it. Ten years later, he's still not over her.
• Broken Love Series Keiran Masters becomes absolutely furious if anyone as much as looks at his girlfriend Lake Monroe. He gets her to quit her job after he comes in while a customer is trying to ask her out, and is insanely jealous of her hanging out with a male friend who is gay.
• Erich in A Cry in the Night. He's extremely possessive of his new wife Jenny and jealous of any man who shows her affection, however innocent it is. He wants her to cut her ex-husband out of her life completely despite him being the father of her children and Jenny gets the impression he believes she still has feelings for Kevin despite their marriage having ended years ago. He even makes a point of asking her on their wedding night if there have been any other men she's loved besides Kevin (with the implication he wants to know whether she's had sex with anyone else too).
• In the short story "CU: Mannix" by Richard Matheson, the vain and egotistical protagonist finds himself in a quandary of his own making when a joke he initiated goes entirely too far and leads him to believe that his wife is cheating, even though all of the 'proof' he uses to persuade himself is circumstantial and inextricably tied to his constant insecurities related to his age and appearance. Double subversion—his wife was actually faithful and was not cheating when he attempted to walk in on her and literally play the part of the wounded spouse (he is an actor after all), but now his blunderings have given her carte blanche to do as she pleases. It's heavily implied at the end of the story that she actually will have an affair soon, with the very man her husband tried to entrap her with in the first place!
• The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein: Hoo boy, Victor. As a child, he didn’t want to be separated from Elizabeth even for school, and he didn’t react well to Henry kissing her. As an adult, he’s much worse, orchestrating Justine’s death not only for his experiments but because he was jealous of Elizabeth's love for her.
• Dom Casmurro: The main character, a lawyer named Bentinho, seems to be truly crazy and obsessed with the thought of his wife cheating him with his best friend. However, since he's also the narrator, it's not clear if it was true or just pure madness.
• A Dowry of Blood: Dracula is very possessive of his harem despite the seemingly nice demeanor he initially gives off. This is because he views them less as people and more as possessions and has even gotten rid of any brides who he believes have outlived their usefulness. He explodes into violent tempers if he even thinks his harem have affection for anyone else.
• In Earth's Children, romantic jealousy is a recurring issue for Jondalar, mostly because he's never really learnt how to deal with it healthily; after Zolena he never got especially attached to any of his lovers until Ayla, and he can't bear the thought of losing her. In the past he completely lost it and knocked out a guy's teeth when he revealed his forbidden relationship with his donii-woman, Zolena (the boy also had feelings for Zolena and exposed them from jealousy). He gets extremely jealous of Ranec showing affection to Ayla, to the point he can't even bear to be around them, though he restrains himself from beating Ranec up, even invoking I Want My Beloved to Be Happy when Ayla seems to choose Ranec over himself. He continues to struggle with jealousy when other men show interest in Ayla, though he tries to keep it under control and reminds himself that Ayla still wants to be with him. Then in The Land of Painted Caves, he loses it again and beats up Laramar after he sees Ayla having sex with him (in this case Ayla was intentionally trying to make him jealous, though Jondalar still overreacted and has to make restitution).
• The Empirium Trilogy: Corien can't stand Rielle's affection for Audric, finding the prince a simpleminded, foolish dullard. He would most certainly kill Audric if not for the fact that doing so would irreparably turn Rielle's wrath against him. Instead, he limits himself to manipulating Rielle into beliving Audric would hate her if he ever found out the destructive potential her powers hold and Rielle's desires to test them.
• There was a Fear Street miniseries based around a girl with an insanely jealous boyfriend who murdered several people for getting too close to her, including guys he spotted on dates with his girlfriend's roommates who had borrowed her clothes. It's eventually revealed that the girl has multiple personalities, and her "boyfriend" as well as her roommates are all her own alter egos.
• Christian Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey. He has Ana's workplace under his control, he traces her with her cell phone (a present from him, by the way), and freaks out if she doesn't reply to his texts or emails within a certain time frame. Even in Fifty Shades Darker, he buys all of the pictures of her just because he doesn't want another guy looking at her. In Fifty Shades Freed, he even manages to become jealous of his unborn child and, after drowning his sorrows with Elena, he admits that he fears that Ana will choose the baby over him.
• The Girl and the Ghost: A non-romantic example in Pink, who uses his powers to torment Suraya's new friend Jing out of jealousy. This then escalates into tormenting Suraya herself after she dismisses him. Luckily, he gets over it.
• Outwardly it's hard to tell, but Lan Wangji from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi is one of these; he glowers when a shopkeeper puts an arm around Wei Wuxian and holds a grudge against Wen Ning, the closest person to Wei Wuxian other than himself.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: When Hermione goes to the Yule Ball with Krum, a generally respectful and decent Quidditch star who Ron had been a fanboy of, he tells her she's "fraternizing with the enemy." This leads to them fighting for several weeks.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: When Ginny tells Ron that Hermione kissed Krum (after she accuses him of being insecure because he had never kissed a girl), he starts a relationship with Lavender Brown which quickly devolves into its own Operation: Jealousy via Sickeningly Sweethearts as Ron starts to realize he doesn't really have romantic feeling towards her, leaving Lavender insecure and clingy as Ron starts to slip away from her. This wasn't helped by the fact that Hermione's "relationship" with Comac McLaggen was also an Operation: Jealousy; neither of them are good at sorting out their feelings.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: At Bill's wedding, Krum says Ginny is pretty. Harry, posing as a Weasley cousin, snaps that she has a boyfriend he wouldn't want to cross. Note that Harry broke up with Ginny in the previous book to keep her safe.
    Krum: What is the point of being an international Quidditch star if all the good-looking girls are taken?
  • Turns out this was the main cause of Severus Snape's angst. He dearly loved his Lily and utterly despised James for his Jerk Jock bullying and was quite anxious over the fact James liked Lily too. So when his friendship with Lily fell apart, she married James, and they had Harry, Snape was a bit miffed. It's revealed that Snape actually tried to negotiate with Voldemort to spare Lily's life in exchange for her husband and son, which disgusts even Dumbledore. When Harry goes to Hogwarts, Snape wastes no time venting out all his frustration and jealousy of James on poor Harry who has no idea he is the living embodiment of the fact Lily that chose James over him.
• Heart of Steel gives us Jim Thompson, who completely flips his shit after getting torn in half and restored as a clunky cyborg and decides to hunt down not only his girlfriend Julia but also Alistair, who only repaired him in the first place because he was in love with Julia. We learn later that he was actually responsible for Julia being attacked when Jim started to suspect she was planning to break up with him.
• "Hollyoaks" has Brendan Brendan for his on-again, off-again boyfriend Ste Hay.
• In Poul Anderson's "Holmgang", Johnny is shot to death by a man in a bar over a girl. Later turns out to be a ploy to eliminate him, and so open up a slot on the ship for the killer, who needs to return to Earth.
• In the Hurog duology, Ward's brother Tosten is jealous because Ward treats Oreg like a second brother, and is rude to Oreg because of this. He eventually confesses that Ward is the only protective parent he ever had, and he's frightened that Oreg might replace him as Ward's younger brother. He needn't have worried since Ward manages to be there whenever he's really needed, although he does make Oreg a priority when others are there to take care of his siblings.
  • High King Jakoven is a less sympathetic example. If his male lover displays any fondness for anyone, Jakoven murders that person. He also murders his wife's lovers, but that seems to be more politically motivated. Though he might be jealous of them, too, even though he seems to be gay and encourages men to start affairs with his wife.
• Like his animated counterpart, Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame is obsessed with Esmeralda and would kill her if she rejected him. There are a few differences, though: he's a holy man, has done good deeds such as raising his younger brother after their parents' deaths and taking in Quasimodo when no one else would, and doesn't kill anyone (despite his attempts). However, he's still eager to throw her to the wolves if his feelings aren't returned.
• The Kept Man of the Princess Knight: Matthew's first opponent in the series is Lutwidge Lewster, an incel-like paladin in Arwin's party who secretly lusts after the princess and is jealous of Matthew's more honest relationship with her. He hires assassins to kill Matthew as a consequence.
• The Marvellous Land of Snergs: Lady Gwendolyne's paramour would like nothing better than to find Sir Percival and beating him into the ground for courting his lover, even though -as his squire points out- Gwendolyne already found an effective, non-violent way to dissuade Percival.
• Oksa Pollock: Gus is jealous because of the friendship between Oksa and Tugdual.
• Once Upon a Marigold: Rollo, the head palace guard, goes into a smoldering rage whenever his girlfriend shows an interest in another man, and she likes to stir him up that way.
• Erik, the titular The Phantom of the Opera, is an Older Than Radio example over the heroine Christine. Erik is obsessed with her (pretending to be her "Angel of Music") and gets dreadfully jealous of her childhood sweetheart Raoul, even stopping giving Christine signing lessons until she reassures him she and Raoul are Just Friends and he stalks the pair feverishly getting more and more enraged. The ending dials it up as Erik gives an ultimatum: either Christine chooses him over Raoul or he'll blow up half of Paris with gunpowder. Thankfully both outcomes are avoided and Erik lets Christine go free after she shows him all the affection the world can offer him.
  • It's never touched upon in the adaptations but Raoul himself spends half the book being a Crazy Jealous Guy over Christine having been separated from her at youth. Raoul follows Christine around, listens at her door, goes inside her room, and has a Berserk Button over Christine's mysterious suitor. At one point Raoul's inner mantra is literally "I am jealous! I am jealous! I am jealous! I am jealous!". Raoul even shoots Erik at one point but only grazes him, though Raoul is actually thankful for this understanding that Christine is capable of never forgiving him. Raoul does calm down eventually... unlike Erik.
    • Kudos to poor Christine for having to deal with both of them.
• In The Princess Bride The Man in Black aka the Dread Pirate Roberts who’s actually Westley, the titular princess bride Buttercup's One True Love has this attitude towards Buttercup getting married to Prince Humperdink. After saving her from Inigo, Fezzik and Vizzini he expresses his anger calling Buttercup heartless and even slapping her when she slows down their escape. Westley is in truth actually was testing if Buttercup still loved him as she did not wait for him like they promised ^* to be fair she thought he was dead when she got engaged with Humperdink and had no real choice in the matter anyway and when Westley does reveal himself, after Buttercup pushes him into a ravine Buttercup confirms she’s never stopped loving him, i.e realizes what she’s done and jumps into the ravine after Westley. The film adaptation understandably tones down Westley’s Crazy Jealous Guy behavior.
  • Played with in regards to Prince Humperdink. While he naturally finds Buttercup attractive, much like Gaston he still loves himself far more than her and Humperdink also plans to kill Buttercup on their wedding night and make it look like an assassin of the enemy nation Guilder did it. However Humperdink does fall into this when Buttercup refuses to stop gushing about Westley and admit he (Humperdink) is the better man and when Buttercup unwisely calls him a pathetic coward who could never destroy her and Westley’s love, Humperdink files into an Unstoppable Rage tossing Buttercup into her room by her hair and subjects Westley to the worst pain imaginable which temporarily kills him.
    She loves you, the Prince cried. She loves you still and you love her, so think of that—think of this too: in all this world, you might have been happy, genuinely happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, not really, no matter what the storybooks say, but you could have had it, and so, I would think, no one will ever suffer a loss as great as you.
• Luo Binghe from The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System showed signs of being this towards Shen Qingqiu even as a kind and innocent disciple and a combination of poor communication leading him to believe that Shen Qingqiu hates him and Xin Mo's corrupting influence on him causes these jealous tendencies to spiral out of control and almost result in him forcibly merging the human and demon worlds just to force Shen Qingqiu to stay with him.
• Shadow of the Templar: Simon, in Chapter 10.5 of Double Down, takes out his jealousy of Jeremy's ex-boyfriend on Jeremy.
• A Song of Ice and Fire has Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, Catelyn Stark's Unlucky Childhood Friend, who reaches disturbingly Yandere levels of jealousy (i.e: kicking off a continent-wide civil war just because he couldn't have her for himself). Later in the series, he seems to be desperately trying to make his Replacement Goldfish, Catelyn's daughter Sansa Stark, solely dependent on him, and view him as the only man worthy of her.
• Quentin Compson from The Sound and the Fury comes off as this for his sister Caddy due to the Incest Subtext between them. He goes so far as to pick a fight with Dalton Ames because Dalton had slept with Caddy and he tries his hardest to convince Caddy not to marry Herbert Head after she becomes pregnant.
• Sweet Valley High Elizabeth's boyfriend Todd reacts very badly to anyone he perceives as a rival for her affections, so much so that the fan site 1bruce1 nicknamed him "Todd Punch Wilkens." Enid's boyfriend Ronnie Edwards was also like this.
• Both Gilbert Markham and Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — the former takes his rage out on his perceived rival, the latter on his wife.
• Universal Monsters: Slice for Devin Chavarria in book 1. He stalks her, gets violent towards any other man he sees near her, and is very possessive.
• Warrior Cats has Ashfur, who was willing to murder four cats (one of whom was his own apprentice) to hurt Squirrelflight—who had rejected him the year before.
• We takes place in a Free-Love Future where everyone belongs to everyone else (as long as they have a pink sex ticket for that day). Thus, the protagonist is deeply ashamed and disturbed at how angry the thought of a woman he's met sleeping with other men makes him — how unnatural and illogical of him!
• Fu Shenxing from Who Is The Prey. While He Yan is married to Yuan Ze, he has his men chop off his finger after he finds out everything and forces He Yan to divorce him. Late in the story, when he finds out He Yan is pregnant with Yuan Ze’s child after having escaped for a year, he forces her to have an abortion.
• Wulfrik: Baron Udo Kruger is so obsessed with his wife's virtue that he keeps a wizard on the payroll just to keep tabs on her, despite it being glaringly obvious to everyone else (the wizard included), that this exists only in his head and that no sane man would ever want to sleep with her. Wulfrik uses it to his advantage by claiming he's there to see "your wife and my children", which so enrages the baron that he charges out of the city walls, where he is quickly dispatched and the gates of Wisborg left wide open.

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