the bad guy in literature

[cacian]

what about the bad girl??

just looking for some ideas :)

[JCamilo]

Just do anything that come to your mind, Cacian, and you will be a good bad girl :D

[cacian]

Just do anything that come to your mind, Cacian, and you will be a good bad girl :D

LOL but how?
I feel a man is victimised and the girl gets away with it.

[Helga]

In Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier the title character was not a very good person and neither was the maid, don't remember her name.

there is a great book called The Monstrous feminine about bad and evil women, it's a very good book. Grendel's mother in Beowulf is very evil, but I did pity her in the original poem but in movies based on the poem she is usually seen as an evil women who uses men to get what she wants, often in a sexual way.

[JCamilo]

LOL but how?
I feel a man is victimised and the girl gets away with it.

how? :D

have you been reading 50 shades recently? :D

[Lokasenna]

Milady de Winter? She's a truly great female literary villain. And, of course, Morgan le Fey is the eternal thorn in King Arthur's side...

[cacian]

how? :D

have you been reading 50 shades recently? :D

no I have not read that.
am I missing something?

[cacian]

Milady de Winter? She's a truly great female literary villain. And, of course, Morgan le Fey is the eternal thorn in King Arthur's side...

Loka thank you. :)

[Sido]

Well there’s Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, The Queen in Cymbeline, Professor Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter, Rachel in My cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, The White Witch in Narnia and Meda in Meda by Euripides.

As for Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, even though her behavior towards the new Mrs. De Winter was not justifiable, I still did feel sorry for her. After all she had been very attached to Rebecca and the marriage to the new bride had been very sudden.

[JCamilo]

no I have not read that.
am I missing something?

No, not really :D

There is plenty of Bad Girls: Circe, Helen, Mirrha, Dalilah, Djanira, Baba Yaga, Lamia, Lilith, Cathy from Wutthering Heights, almost every woman inside the stories told by Scheherazade, Carmilla, a collection of witches, evil faeries and stepmothers inside faery tales, Madame Defarge from Tale of two cities, Gagool from King Solomon's Mine...

[Dark Muse]

Cathy From East of Eden I think makes a pretty good bad girl.

And though personally I like her, some might consider Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair to be a bad girl.

Another who I quite like but others might consider bad is Clytemnestra from The Oresteia

[Seasider]

Mildred in "Of Human Bondage" by WS Maugham.Especially as played by Bette Davis in the film.

[Dark Muse]

A couple of others I just thought of

Matilda from The Monk

and I don't know how I could have forotten her before

Marquise de Merteuil from Dangerous Laiasons

[kev67]

Don't forget Cruella de Ville from 101 Dalmatians.

[Dark Muse]

Don't forget Cruella de Ville from 101 Dalmatians.

Now that you mention that, Fairy Tales in general offer a plethora of villainous females

[cacian]

Now that you mention that, Fairy Tales in general offer a plethora of villainous females

that is very true.
I just remembered snow white of course. the mother in law.

[Whosis]

Daisy from The Great Gatsby? Sort of? Smashing up dreams and whatnot?

[Lokasenna]

that is very true.
I just remembered snow white of course. the mother in law.

A substantial amount of my academic work has been given over to examining the figure of the evil step-mother (or 'witch-queen' as I prefer) in the early medieval literature that ultimately lies behind the later villain of Germanic fairytale. IF nothing else, as a villain figure she exercised a powerful hold over the imagination of the medieval North.