  We develop a new method to solve the irreducible character problem for a wide
class of modules over the general linear superalgebra, including all the
finite-dimensional modules, by directly relating the problem to the classical
Kazhdan-Lusztig theory. We further verify a parabolic version of a conjecture
of Brundan on the irreducible characters in the BGG category $\mc{O}$ of the
general linear superalgebra. We also prove the super duality conjecture.
