Let’s combine another two categories from the Penguin list since my dictionary tells me that rebellion is open resistance to established authority and subversion is an attempt to undermine the authority of an established system or institution. I get the difference, but if I combine them. I get another category to make up later.

THE BEST SUBVERSION (according to the Penguin List)
1984
George Orwell
The Monkey Wrench Gang
Edward Abbey
The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli
Bound for Glory
Woody Guthrie
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller

BEST REBELS (according to the Penguin List)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X
The Outsider
Albert Camus
Animal Farm
George Orwell
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Les Misérables
Victor Hugo I put Jean Valjean in the category of Best Heroes because he wasn’t ultimately a rebel but rather a penitent sinner and a hero.

Best Rebels (according to Semicolon)

Paradise Lost by John Milton. In literature and in life, isn’t Lucifer the model rebel?

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. I’m breaking the rules myself because I haven’t actually read The Communist Manifesto, but don’t I know enough about it and its effects (Stalinist Russia, Maoist China) to declare it pernicious and its authors deserving of a spot alongside Lucifer?

1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell. Something about the category tempts one to rule-breaking. I can’t decide between these two masterpieces in which the characters mount an ultimately unsuccesful challenge to an unjust authority.

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Mr. Christian also rebels against what he sees as injustice, but his plans for an ideal society fall apart in the face of man’s sin and ingratitude. Pitcairn Island: Where rebellion becomes a way of life.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Humorously subversive and then openly rebellious Huck Finn refuses to conform to the society that wants to tame him and civilize him. Mark Twain uses Huck to make fun of, and yes, subvert, the hypocrisy of a society that condones slavery and other evils and inequities. Huck never does give in; at the end of the book he’s headed for the West “because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”

Cathy and Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights) belong to this list, but they’re slated for the Best Lovers list. Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair) is a rebel if there ever was one, but she’s going in the Best Minxes list. Don Juan (Byron) and Judah Ben Hur (Ben Hur) and Maggie Tolliver (The Mill on the Floss) are rebels, too, but the limit is five and I’ve already gone over.

Whom do you nominate for Best Rebels and Subversives in literature? And is subversion ultimately more successful than open rebellion?

It could be argued that most great authors are somewhat subversive, trying to challenge the status quo in some way. Even those books that show a failed rebellion ( Mutiny on the Bounty, Huck Finn, Death of a Salesman) are attempting to encourage a real change in the laws and unwritten rules of society. And some books (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Common Sense, The Communist Manifesto) have been quite successful in fomenting rebellion.