The worst main woman characters

[bazarov]

Which of this lady's is the worst one??? Nora, Madame Bovary or Ana Karenina??
To me Madame Bovary definitly; 3 lovers, no love for her child...And suicide, without any strenght to accept consequences for her acts. What do you think?? At first, I didn' like Ana also, but I think she is OK, and Nora is great...Leaving her loving children beacuse she can't be a role model to them. That's really a sacrifice.

[Inga]

I agree about Madame Bovary. She is just selfish and her behaviour cannot be easily excused. I have to admit that I disliked the whole book because of this character. Don't know why, because I actually enjoyed reading Anna Karenina. And I didn't see Anna as a bad character.

[Pensive]

Lucy Manette from A Tale Of Two Cities

[Asa Adams]

Oh, Baz, I didn't know you were such a suck. "Leaving her loving children, because she couldn't be a role Model to them." Thats really nice :lol: :lol: :lol: And Sensitive too! :banana:

[Lady19thC]

I would have to say Madame Bovary. She is selfish from the very beginning, very materialistic, not caring for her husband, child nor MIL, always in debt, always wanting more, never sure of what she really wants. Then all her various love affairs, demanding more, being indiscreet, falling further and further into a hole, and at the last minute killing herself because she was too much of a coward to face up to her husband and others about what she has been doing and spending behind his back! She drove me nuts!

Anna Karenina is a much sadder case. She was much younger than her husband, and being of the aristocracy, my feeling is that her marriage was fixed. She adored her husband, and tried not to get involved with anyone, but her situation was too much to fight. She truly loved the one man she had an affair with, and he loved her. She fell into a depression only after her baby died, and she became addicted to morphine, etc. Feeling abandoned she took her life. Instead of being about greed, she was more about unhappiness.

I have no idea who Nora is, so can't compare. What novel is Nora from?

[grace86]

I would have to say Anna Karenina right now, only because I am reading the book and Anna is just frustrating me.

[grace86]

But I do think you are right though Lady19thC. Anna's case is really sad, and understandable..but frustrating none the less.

[bazarov]

I would have to say Madame Bovary. She is selfish from the very beginning, very materialistic, not caring for her husband, child nor MIL, always in debt, always wanting more, never sure of what she really wants. Then all her various love affairs, demanding more, being indiscreet, falling further and further into a hole, and at the last minute killing herself because she was too much of a coward to face up to her husband and others about what she has been doing and spending behind his back! She drove me nuts!

Anna Karenina is a much sadder case. She was much younger than her husband, and being of the aristocracy, my feeling is that her marriage was fixed. She adored her husband, and tried not to get involved with anyone, but her situation was too much to fight. She truly loved the one man she had an affair with, and he loved her. She fell into a depression only after her baby died, and she became addicted to morphine, etc. Feeling abandoned she took her life. Instead of being about greed, she was more about unhappiness.

I have no idea who Nora is, so can't compare. What novel is Nora from?


Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House; it's on authors list

[bazarov]

Oh, Baz, I didn't know you were such a suck. "Leaving her loving children, because she couldn't be a role Model to them." Thats really nice :lol: :lol: :lol: And Sensitive too! :banana:
And then they say that my hard is solid as a rock... :lol: :lol: :lol: I'm like a daisy...

[mono]

Though, unfortunately, I have not read any Henrik Ibsen, I would also have to go with Madame Bovary from the selections. I choose Emma Bovary primarily because Anna Karenina, to me, shows more dignity with her affair; she hides nothing, admits fully of her affair, and also shows more care to her child than Bovary.
From a Maslow perspective, Anna Karenina merely seems closer to self-actualization than Emma Bovary - she knows what she desires, she attempts attaining, yet, sadly, both cases come to the same end.

[byquist]

Hedda Gabler is a tough cookie
Queen Margaret in Hen VI, I-III and Richy III
Emma in the film Johnny Guitar I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley
Bette Davis' mother in "Now Voyager" is a nasty

Oh, I see one has to pick from the three. Nora is a fine character; Torvald is the dope. Anna was married to a dullard, so I don't blame her any. Bovary I read once long ago, but it sounds from some others that she's not up to the other two.

[superunknown]

What about Lady Macbeth? She's every man's nightmare.

[cuppajoe_9]

Nora Helmer? What do you have against Nora, exactly?

[mono]

While thinking of the original choices that bazarov mentioned (Nora Helmer, Madame Emma Bovary, and Anna Karenina), where do you think Lady Constance Chatterley (of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence) would fit? Though I have, unfortunately, never read any Henrik Ibsen, I find her manner and position quite similar to Madame Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina.

[bazarov]

Nora Helmer? What do you have against Nora, exactly?
No, not at all, I think Nora is great!!! You've got it wrong :nod:

[mtpspur]

Anyone for Milady in Three Musketeers??

[bazarov]

It's hard to compare...but you may be right

[cuppajoe_9]

No, not at all, I think Nora is great!!! You've got it wrong

Yes, I suppose I do.

I also thought she was pretty cool.

[Eufrosyne]

Emma Bovary is definitely worse than at least Nora Helmer. I don't think she's very mean at all... Haven't read Anna Karenina, but I think Therese Raquin is even worse than mme Bovary. She actually kills people!

[Til]

I can`t say that Emma is the worst woman character, if her dreams would come true, I think she wasn`t so silly with her life, ignorant with her chikld and husband/ I rather feel sympathy to her.It is not her guilt that she wants to be better but can`t.
What about Anna I don`t think she is bad at all, and the fact that she has a lover doesn`t make her worse/She loves him sinserely, she loves her son.
I don`t know anything about Nora, but I feel? that the worst woman character, I met last was Rebecka Sharp, althrough she is rather charming.

[Cormeister37]

I find nothing wrong in Anna Karenina's character; I believe Tolstoy did a great job in showing how Anna really had no choice about anything that happened in her life. If anything she was one of the most noble characters in that book.

Anyway, yes Emma Bovary pissed me off to all hell. Hm, and I'm reading The Portrait of a Lady right now by Henry James, and I don't seem to like any of the female characters besides the main character, Isabel. But then that doesn't count, since they aren't the main characters. I didn't like Daisy very much of the Great Gatsby, simply because she was selfish and egotistical, (stop reading if you haven't read the book) and allowed for Gatsby's ruin when she was the one who killed Myrtle.

[Idril]

The only one from the 3 original choices that I'm familar with is Anna and while she certainly has some issues, I do...I don't know if I would use the word 'like', but I do have a lot of sympathy for her. From the books that I've read, Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair is probably my least favorite female lead character. She is manipulative, shallow, cold and the her worst sin as far as I'm concerned is her complete indifference to her son, that above all else is unforgivable to me. Oh! I almost forgot...Irene from Forsyte Saga, I dislike her so intensely. Inspite of the fact that Soames was completely clueless and his actions towards her were clumsy, inept and at times, criminal I never had any sympathy for her, she was so cold and she made the decision to marry Soames even though she didn't love him and knew she never would and then did nothing but sulk and make everyone's life around her miserable because she was this poor, miserable wench who was tied to someone she depised. I often wondered if Galsworthy wanted us to like her, if he wanted her to be a heroine or if he knew just how unsympathetic she came off.

[Pensive]

The only one from the 3 original choices that I'm familar with is Anna and while she certainly has some issues, I do...I don't know if I would use the word 'like', but I do have a lot of sympathy for her. From the books that I've read, Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair is probably my least favorite female lead character. She is manipulative, shallow, cold and the her worst sin as far as I'm concerned is her complete indifference to her son, that above all else is unforgivable to me.

Oh I forgot that I also disliked Becky Sharp immensely for the very same reasons you have mentioned. The only place where I found a soft corner for her was when she helped her friend (forgotten the name) during the war when George (or what was his name) was found dead.

[Idril]

Oh I forgot that I also disliked Becky Sharp immensely for the very same reasons you have mentioned. The only place where I found a soft corner for her was when she helped her friend (forgotten the name) during the war when George (or what was his name) was found dead.

And at the end, when she told her friend, Amelia (I had forgotten her name as well, I looked it up ;) ) about what a jerk George really was so that she, Amelia, could move on and marry Dobbin, that was nice but it still doesn't make up for the litany of sins Becky had racked up up to that point. :rolleyes:

[Pensive]

And at the end, when she told her friend, Amelia (I had forgotten her name as well, I looked it up ;) ) about what a jerk George really was so that she, Amelia, could move on and marry Dobbin, that was nice but it still doesn't make up for the litany of sins Becky had racked up up to that point. :rolleyes:

*Agrees* Couldn't have put it better myself. Here is my short poem about Becky:

Becky was a nutter
Who lived a a gutter
Gutter of sins
She deserved to be punished
By any means

Really, along with my immense dislike for her, I finds her a very complex character sometimes.

[Pensive]

Catherine, later Kate (East Of Eden) is one of the most self-centered and devil-like (don't deserve to be called human) characters I have ever come across.

[Behemoth]

Hmm... hope I don't start a fight here....but I hated the elder Catherine in 'Wuthering Heights.' I just thought that she was self-centred and childish, and whilst you can attribute this to her social position, etc, I found her to be an irritating character and one with whom I had very little, if any, sympathy.

[Danika_Valin]

How about Fanny in Mansfield Park?

[Behemoth]

How about Fanny in Mansfield Park?

Good point. I found that novel SO difficult to read.