Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living… in Lawndale with her super stifling family. Her parents Helen and Jake are go-getter career-oriented people who just want Daria to be a successful socialite like them, but she couldn’t care less. She also has a younger sister, Quinn, who is the total opposite of her – a preppy, popular airhead – and they fight constantly. Daria does love them, but thinks they’re totally clueless when it comes to understanding her.
Profession… high school student. Daria attends Lawndale High. Daria struggles to fit in with everyone else at school, often getting picked on by her peers, but she prefers to observe and mock them from afar. Jane Lane, who shares her cynical personality, is her only real friend at school. Daria’s also a straight-A student even though she doesn’t put in that much effort.
Interests… classic literature, foreign films, and rock music. Daria likes things that most people her age find boring or unusual. Her tastes are remarkably sophisticated for a teenage high school girl.
Relationship Status… single. As Daria tells her best friend Jane, “Can you picture me making out with anyone? Ever?” While Daria thinks she’s above high school romance, she secretly reads a lot of romance novels. She also has a crush on Jane’s brother, Trent, but her unwillingness to show her real emotions and to get close to others makes it hard for Daria to pursue a relationship with anyone.
Challenge… surviving high school with her sanity. Daria constantly faces torment from her family and peers who just want her to be more normal. She couldn’t care less about conforming to their standards and would rather be left alone. She spends most of her time dealing with her misanthropy.
Personality… apathetic, anti-social, and intellectual. Daria lives to make sarcastic and cynical comments on the vapid and cheerful people around her. She rarely shows any emotion and appears stand-offish and uncaring most of the time. She engages in intellectual and philosophical quandaries and prefers to dedicate herself to reading, finding more in common with fictional characters than people in the real world.