Literary heroes used as protest figures

[hk103044]

I'm writing an essay about catch-22 and 1960s American counterculture, discussing how Yossarian was adopted as a symbol by anti-vietnam protestors using the slogan 'Yossarian lives.'
Can anyone think of any other example from any period when a figure from fiction has been used as a symbolic figure of protest?
Thanks!

[redwellies]

Jane Eyre caused more discussion than can easily be imagined now, if not outright protest. Haven't read it, but Uncle Tom's Cabin? Dickens's books? I'm sure there are some very recent examples, but none I can place now. Will have a think...

[jno]

I was involved in a bit of counterculture protest in my younger days and to be honest, Yossarian wasn't really much used except as a sort of literary allusion occasionally dropped into a conversation. For one thing, few of the people at whom the protests were aimed - the Johnson and Nixon administrations, the Pentagon - were likely to have the faintest idea who Yossarian was.

Images and ideas of Frankenstein sometimes get used in protests against genetically modified foods.

[heathfield]

You might point out that there's a strange effect with 'Catch 22'. On the first reading it's a very funny book. On the second reading there's a sense that it's really quite serious. The third time it's read, it becomes one of the most anti-war books ever written