Literary characters in exam season

With the stress and turmoil of Term 3 looming over our heads, the fear of sitting an exam and coursework deadlines is well and truly begining to set in. The sound of notifications from Tabula reminding you of coursework submission deadlines haunt you. You look back at all of those mornings throughout the year that you pressed the snooze button on your alarm for a 9am lecture and are overcome with a crippling sense of regret. Making your way to the library, you realise that finding a free seat becomes an art form in itself. Everyone is counting down the days until their last deadline.

As exam season approaches, there are a few types of students who you’ll begin to recognise around campus.

Matilda (Matilda, Roald Dahl)

Matilda is the kind of student we all wish we were but somehow just cannot manage to be. The snooze button does not exist on Matilda’s phone and although she is very well read and eloquent, the words “lie in” are not part of her vocabulary. This means that despite the surge of students in the library over Term 3, Matilda always manages to find a spot to sit. She is always bursting with highlighted and colour-coded revision cards. She keeps her head in the books, only looking up briefly to check that she is sticking to her perfectly planned exam timetable.

Sherlock Holmes (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There comes a point during the exam season where you have procrastinated for so long. You have not started revising yet and at this point you cannot manage to cover everything on the syllabus. This is where Sherlock Holmes begins to work. Sherlock puts on his detective hat and meticulously searches through years of past papers in the hopes of working out patterns in exam questions. Attempting to predict which topics and texts will be chosen for this year’s exam, Sherlock is the master of tactical revision.

Frankenstein (Frankenstein, Mary Shelley)

As Term 3 goes by and exams loom over our heads, sleep becomes a vague friend we were once familiar with but no longer keep in touch with. Frankenstein is not alone in his zombie-like state as he trails around campus – sleep deprived and desperately in need of a nap.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson)

Although Dr Jekyll may not have seen a great deal of campus in the daylight as he has spent the better part of the first two terms between his bedroom and “Pop!”, he has transformed into Mr Hyde over the course of the Easter Holiday. Trading in circling nights for late night revision sessions in the library, the former party animal known as Dr Jekyll is no longer recognisable as the focused and studious Mr Hyde.

Atticus (To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee)

As coursework deadlines are imminent, deadline extensions become a possibility for many students. Atticus Finch is the master of making a plausible case for a deadline extension. He pleads to his personal tutor and carefully crafts persuasive emails to his course conveners. He patiently waits for the much-anticipated email and the verdict is always that his case has been successful yet again.

Snake (Paradise Lost, John Milton)

As we all know, in Paradise Lost it was Satan that tempted Eve to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge in the form of a snake but it seems the temptation did not end there. The snake never fails to tempt you into going on a night out. You are in over your head with coursework deadlines and exams are just around the corner – it makes absolutely no sense for you to go on a night out – but somehow the snake manages to tempt you into pre-drinks and before you know it you are getting out of the taxi and queuing up to get into the club.

Keep an eye out for these familiar figures this exam season. While you may currently be stuck in a state between Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll, it might be time to start aspiring towards the work ethic of Matilda, no matter how hard that may seem.