Mitică

Among Mitică's traits are his tendency to generate sarcastic comebacks and sententious catchphrases, a Francized speech, as well as inclinations to waste time and easily find his way out of problematic situations.

Like Lache and Mache, who are present in Caragiale's fiction, the character is usually portrayed as a civil servant who has a hard time making ends meet, but who is well liked by his peers.

In parallel, the term was adapted into a stereotype of modern Bucharesters and inhabitants of other regions over the Southern Carpathians, who are often portrayed as belonging to the Balkans, as opposed to the Central European traditions of Transylvania.

And given that Bucharest is a little Paris, Mitică himself is, obviously, a little Parisian.He is neither young nor old, neither handsome nor ugly, he is so so; he is a lad whose features are all balanced; but that which sets him apart, that which makes him have a marked character is his original and inventive spirit.

"[1]With sarcasm, Caragiale proceeds to indicate that the character's main trait is his inventive use of Romanian and his tendency to coin terms and make jokes, with which "First and foremost, our little Parisian astounds the provincials".

[1] The writer implicates himself in the story, portraying himself as his character's good friend and a main target for such remarks—for instance, he recounts that, soon after New Year's Eve 1900, Mitică pretended not to have recognized him because "it's been a century since we last saw each other!

Thus, he claims that he does not carry change because the metal might attract lightning, refuses to listen to his friends' confessions because they did not pay the revenue stamp for complaints, and, when told that cabs are available, he sarcastically tells the drivers that they may go home.

[1] Caragiale provides some of his character's one-liner jokes, which include references to garlic as "Serbian vanilla", and to Romanian leu banknotes as "Trajan's pictures" (alluding to their design, which, at the time, featured a portrait of the Roman Emperor).

[1] His absurd requests include asking a shopkeeper to sell him "a few centimeters" of yogurt, and telling friends to drink their beer "before it cools itself" or to "climb on top of a sheet of paper" in order to reach for clothes placed higher on a stand.

[2] Tot Mitică offers other glimpses into the character's financial problems, showing him complaining that he has been "pulling the devil's tail"—using a traditional proverb to indicate that he has had a hard time getting by.

[2] The character reveals his tendencies toward political satire, with a one-liner introduced by Caragiale's definition of "Mitică as a chauvinist"—Mitică is shown announcing that the only song he wants to have played at his funeral is the nationalist tune Deşteaptă-te, române!

[4] In another such piece, titled Iniţiativa... ("The Initiative..."), Caragiale recounts another dialog with "my buddy Mitică", who is shown to be unnerved that the Romanian state "is indifferent" to the fact that infants, his daughter included, do not have wet nurses assigned to them, and that breastfeeding has to rely on the private sector.

Caragiale recounts how his friend served him and others a copious dinner in his house, and then made them sit through Graziella's reading of her own lengthy essay on women as portrayed in Romanian folklore.

[7] Despite Mitică's association with Bucharest and his usual most common career as a state employee, several commentators have recounted that he may have been based on Gheorghe Matheescu, an entrepreneur from the town of Sinaia (located on the Prahova Valley, in northern Muntenia).

Literary historian Garabet Ibrăileanu, an adherent to the left-wing trend known as Poporanism, was among the first to stress that Mitică's name, like those of Lache and Mache, was actually supposed to enhance his everyday nature, while arguing that the character stood for the first generation of commoners with access to education.

[6] Literary historian George Călinescu saw Mitică as a main representative of Balkan subjects in Ion Luca Caragiale's prose, and listed among the character's other traits his pessimism in respect to historical developments, as well as his interest in rallying people off the street and imposing his ideas on them.

[11] He defined the latter aspect as "southern", and noted that, like other heroes of Caragiale's sketches, Mitică is "at the antipode of Romanticism", and inhabits a place where "Gothic meditation does not flourish".

[15] Political interpretations of Mitică's status were present at an earlier stage: in his influential essay Neoiobăgia ("Neo-Serfdom"), the Marxist thinker Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, himself a friend of Caragiale, used Iniţiativa...'s protagonist to illustrate the interventionist policies of the National Liberal cabinets.

[17] Pirgu, who enjoys a successful career during the interwar despite having a shady past and coarse manners, has been defined by Amăriuţei as "the eternal and real Mitică of the Romanian world".

[17] He thus argued that, for all their mundane motivations, the character and his peers illustrated a search present with all individuals, identifiable with Heidegger's concepts of Being-in-the-World and Being-toward-death (see Heideggerian terminology).

This name drew a direct comparison between the voluble Mitică and an equally famous character in Romanian literature, the aloof, rational, and god-like protagonist of Mihai Eminescu's poem Luceafărul ("The Morning Star").

"[13]Literary critic Ioana Pârvulescu agreed that there was a link between Mitică and other characters in Caragiale's sketches; she subsequently argued that formed an integral part of the writer's caricature of Romania in its entirety, and that the measure to which they reflected reality is impossible to detect.

[19] In September 1998, the Transylvanian journalist and essayist Sabin Gherman issued a pamphlet titled M-am săturat de România ("I've Grown Tired of Romania"), which was at the center of a scandal over its radical tone and demands for regional autonomy in Transylvania.

Hosted by the actor Mitică Popescu, the show groups reportage pieces from the Romanian countryside, recording unusual events which, the editors believe, serve to illustrate the problems faced by small communities in the post-1989 transition period.