Lena Kaligaris (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

Infobox Person
name = Lena Catagaris| nickname = Lenny, Len


image_size = 200px
caption = (L to R) Carmen (America Ferrera), Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Lena (Alexis Bledel), and Bridget (Blake Lively)
birth_place = Bethesda, Maryland
birth_date = Late August
age = 16-19
occupation = Artist
education = RISD College
spouse = Kostos Dounas (boyfriend)
Leo (boyfriend)
family = Ariadne "Ari" Kaligaris (mother)
Georgios "George" Kaligaris (father)
Effie Kaligaris (sister)
family = Effie Kaligaris (sister)
Valia Kaligaris (paternal grandmother)
Bapi Kaligaris (paternal grandfather)

Lena "Lenny" Kaligaris is a fictional character in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", a best-selling series of young adult novels by Ann Brashares. In the 2003 film version of the first book, she is portrayed by Alexis Bledel.

Personality

Lena is a shy, introspective aspiring artist of Greek heritage. Lena is very beautiful, but shys away from others because she always worries they only like her for her beauty. Lena considers her biggest weaknesses are her inability to love and trust freely and her tendency to avoid the real situation because it is emotionally difficult to deal with. She feels especially guilty that people like her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Kostos, and best friend, Bee, who have lost so much in their lives, can live and love freely when she is reluctant to trust others. Her friend, Tibby, adds that "If you asked Lena to pick A or B, she'd always choose C," meaning that Lena has difficulty following her emotions. Rather, she justifies and overthinks everything.

Family

Sister: Lena has an outgoing and slightly trampy younger sister named Effie. She and Effie generally get along, even though they are very different. She does, however, have some disagreements with her sister, as Effie sometimes feels like Lena chooses her friends (the Sisterhood) over her own family.
*However, the character of Effie Kaligaris was not in the movie made of the first book, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (film).

Mother: Lena's mother, Ari, is a psychologist of Greek descent. She is very similar to her daughter in that she tends to be closed off and serious. Ari had a very passionate love affair when she was a young woman, but her lover left for Greece, telling her he'd return and never did, leaving her heartbroken. Lena and her mother sometimes have difficulty connecting, but they find emotional support in one another during Lena's break-up, as her mother can relate. Ari is described as very ambitious.

Father: Lena's father is equally ambitious. His father wanted him to continue the family restaurant business in Greece, but he left for America to pursue a career in business. He is very old-fashioned and is not at all keen about Lena joining art school because he knows she will be painting nude models. Lena observes that though he puts on a tough "man of the house" exterior, he is actually quite vulnerable and is just worried about losing his daughters.

Grandfather: Lena's grandfather "Bapi" is very close to her, despite the fact that he doesn't speak English and she speaks only limited Greek. Lena sometimes feels like an outsider amongst her wild and extroverted Greek relatives, but she and Bapi are both more quiet and pensive; he calls her "his girl" because of this. He is her paternal grandfather. In "The Second Summer of the Sisterhood", he dies of a stroke.

Grandmother: Lena's paternal grandmother Valia is closer in personality to Effie than Lena. Valia is a vivacious and outgoing Greek woman who loves cooking and has an appetite for gossip. She is the one who encouraged Lena's relationship with Kostos. After the death of her husband and subsequent move to America, Valia became bitter and disagreeable, quite in contrast to her previous vibrant personality. Though she is still heartbroken, she becomes more of her old self upon her return to Greece.

Friends

Lena best friends are Tibby Rollins, Carmen Lowell and Bridget Vreeland. She is especially close to Bridget and Carmen and often worries about the former's recklessness.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

In the first book in the series, she meets Kostos when she goes to Santorini, Greece, to visit her grandparents. When they first meet, it's obvious that he's immediately infatuated with her, which leads her to dislike him, believing he only likes her because of her beauty. Later, he is apparently spying on her when she goes skinny-dipping in an olive grove, leading their grandfathers to engage in a fight. Later, she realizes that it was all a misunderstanding. She also realizes her true feelings for Kostos. Brashares based Lena on the myth of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt who, when spotted bathing by a suitor, turned the young man into a stag. [1]

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

We learn that several months after she got together with Kostos, Lena broke up with him because she didn't like her happiness being so dependent on another person. The book centers on her admitting her feelings for Kostos. He eventually visits her and the two spend a happy week together; Kostos then leaves with nothing but cryptic warnings about his obligations in Greece. Later, Bapi dies. At his funeral in Greece, Lena confronts Kostos and he tells her that one of the girls he dated in an attempt to get over Lena is pregnant; he has married her so that she will not have to raise the child alone. At the end of the book, Lena goes out to dinner with Carmen where she meets Carmen's stepbrother, Paul. The sparks between them are spectacular, and the book ends with Carmen hoping that Lena won't let her relationship difficulties with Kostos get in the way of her going after a great guy like Paul.

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

In this book, Lena tries to get over Kostos. She goes to an art class, but when her father learns that they are painting nude models, he withdraws his funding for both the class and her tuition to an art university. Lena befriends her teacher, Annik, who urges her to take a stand for her rights and raise the money herself. Annik is in a wheelchair and asks Lena to paint a portrait of her. Lena, feeling awkward, neglects to paint Annik's wheelchair. Annik tells her that in order to be a real artist she must "draw the chair," a metaphor which Lena later uses in her life to encourage her to confront pain instead of shying from it. Using her "draw the chair" philosophy, Lena finds some closure with her father, sister and bitter grandmother, who is staying with the family in the States due to the death of Bapi the previous summer. It also encourages her to acknowledge the effect her break-up with Kostos had on her and encourages her to finally consider a relationship with Paul.

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Lena stays at her college, RISD, for a summer art class where she meets a handsome and talented young man named Leo. A mutual attraction develops, and eventually she loses her virginity to him. After they have sex, however, Lena is flooded with emotion, realizing that she didn't care for Leo as much as she still cares for Kostos. Meanwhile, Kostos visits her and reveals that he is getting a divorce; his wife claims to have had a miscarriage, but he is suspicious that she made up her pregnancy in the first place to get him to propose to her. Annoyed that things were finally going her way romantically before Kostos came and mixed up her feelings, Lena visits him in his motel and yells at him for expecting her to not have gotten over him. When she visits Greece with the rest of the sisterhood, she meets up with Kostos again. Kostos explains he was going to marry her but fails to ask after Lena yells at him in the motel. They talk over their relationship and he finally kisses her, before cryptically telling her "Someday" in Greek and leaving for London for school.

Trivia

*In the film, Lena is Greek. In real life, the actor who portrays her, Alexis Bledel is of Hispanic descent, having an Argentine father and a Mexican-American mother.

*America Fererra was surprised to even see Alexis Bledel speaking Spanish while talking to a Spanish magazine.