There's always been the joke that women are a complete mystery to men, whereas men are transparant to women, hence why we have many female scholars looking and masculinity but few 'feminist' male writers.
So which authors would you say managed to get women right?
Faulkner's Drusilla Hawk Sartoris "slender and invincible and fatal as the physical shape of love" has always been one of my favorite female characters. It is not just her courage, or her strength, but the complex layered nature of the character.
A good example of this is in Raid from The Unvanquished when she is explaining to Bayard why she doesnt sleep.
". . .Stupid, you see. . .it is, it's fine now; you don't have to worry now about the house and the silver because they get burned up and carried away. . .and you don't have to worry about getting children. . .because the young men can ride away and get killed in the fine battles and you don't even have to sleep alone, you don't even have to sleep at all and so all you have to do is. . .say Thank God for nothing."
On the surface, Drusilla feels liberated by the war's destruction of the antebellum societal order and its requisite expectations of femininity, but there is also a decidedly sardonic undertone to the diction which reflects her sense of loss. A loss, not just of a sense of order, or of her fiance who was killed at Shiloh, but a loss of the innocence of youth. She is coping with this loss via sublimation and abdication of societal expectations of womanhood, of the society veritably destroyed by the war, and embraces a heretofore male archetype, even riding off to join Colonel Sartoris and his men in fighting the war.
The war denies Drusilla the opportunity to function as an antebellum southern lady; she has lost two men she loves deeply and the South's principles and social convictions have been challenged. The idea of staying behind, trying to hold together the remnants of family life, is impossible for her. However, it remains evident that she holds onto the essence of her womanhood even as she embraces the life of a Confederate cavalier to avenge the death of her fiance and father. In "An Odor of Verbena" she is depicted as passionate and even lustful, kissing Bayard in the garden and trailing the scent of verbena behind her. In Faulkner's words Drusilla comes to represent "the Greek amphora priestess of a succinct and formal violence." Drusilla represents an ancient concept —the need for formal vengeance: Drusilla is like the Greek Electra who, when her father was killed by his wife, demanded her own mother's death as an act of formal revenge.
Due to her indomitable spirit, fiery passion, iron-bound honor, alluring sensuality, compassionate sensitivity, and yes her all too human flaws, I find her to be one of the more complex and complete female characters in all of literature. I can think of no character who more aptly demonstrates that women really can do it all, and then some.
Last edited by kinesj; 09-01-2011 at 08:55 AM.
To me, characters are only 'right' insofar as they are are believable within the context of the story. Emma Bovary is a supremely drawn female character in that sense. Whether her wickedness, her cliched romanticism, and vulgar sensibilities are or aren't representative of certain types of women who exist in certain times, in certain places, are irrelevant.
"Few 'feminist' male writers"!
I suppose that might be true, if one uses a restrictive definition of "feminist". In it's broader sense, most male writers are feminists. If one looks with open eyes, then one can easily see that even George McDonald Fraser was a feminist writer.
The trouble is that the academic world does. Feminism in academic terms does not simply mean appreciating women. It's a topic that has been 'taken' by women. Many people argue that men can never be 'feminists' because they do not experience what it is like to be a woman.Originally Posted by PeterL
It's not about whether the character is a flattering portrayal of women. Anna Karenina is not exactly a female role model but she is a believable woman and not simply a cardboard cut-out.
Whenever there's a female character, you'll always get some female scholar complaining about how the male author is simply writing a stereotype, but male scholars never seem to say that female writers have written stereotypical men.
I think Richardson may qualify for this one!
As to feminist, maybe not, but having his character Clarissa that she would rather live on her own than marry at al is quie controversial!
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
I loved Anna Karenina. I think Tolstoy created a incredibly profound and beautiful character with her, she seems just like the woman I would fall in love with.
I thought that Dilsey and Caddy from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury were pretty strong characters.
I could see how there could be a whole cottage industry around it, female scholars disparaging male authors for creating stereotypical female characters. Funny thing about this is, what would the female scholars do without the artistically incompetent male authors to disparage and to base their scholarships on? Shouldn't the female scholars be grateful for the wealth of material put at their disposal to be mined?
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a solid choice 4 me. She was, in a way, a man inside a woman's body... Abandoning her spouse n child to run away with her lover, obstinate, overtly jealous, and independent, could have easily characterized a man but described this woman.
Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
Dostoevsky: Grushenka in "The Brothers K"
Henry James: Isabel Archer in "The Portrait of a Lady"
Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d'Urbervilles
D. H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley
Nabokov: Lolita
Defining "feminism" with that restriction eliminates almost all possible value in feminism. It just becomes another way to divide people. I suppose that is one of the many ways that academics want to take power after they eliminate "Enlightenment ideas.
I think the question is very difficult to answer for a number of reasons. Especially as a man. I could only guess, for instance, that Malcolm Lowry's Yvonne in Under the Volcano impresses me as a real flesh and blood woman. Since I've never been a real flesh and blood woman I can only take this on faith. (Of course there are characters of both genders that I don't find persuasive in written works, but that's another story entirely; persuasion of a negative is not the same thing as proof positive.)
Anyway, as I was saying, there are many reasons why answering this question is difficult, for both men and women. For one thing, men and women have arguably become as much defined, by themselves and by each other, by reference to the gender roles and archetypes in storytelling, as gender roles in storytelling have been defined by male and female human beings.
Last edited by joelavine; 09-01-2011 at 06:35 PM. Reason: hanging article
I would concur with these as well, Drusilla just happens to be my favorite, and perhaps more closely aligned to the feminist icon the OP is looking for, but nevertheless D&C certainly endured, transcended, and overcame societal and familial repression.
Last edited by kinesj; 09-01-2011 at 06:41 PM.
She was definitely an interesting character, but the archetype she represents is not entirely consistent with feminist ideology. I think the OP is looking for (actual or potential) feminist icons portrayed by male authors. Note that this doesn't make the character any less stellar in any way, I just wonder if she doesn't fit a somewhat traditional female archetype too closely to be consistent with what the OP is looking for. (please clarify however if my understanding is mistaken)
Last edited by kinesj; 09-01-2011 at 06:43 PM.
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