That is true. Women have always ruled the world, and they will continue, if they remember to let men believe that men rule the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koa
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That is true. Women have always ruled the world, and they will continue, if they remember to let men believe that men rule the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koa
"Man might be the head of the family, but woman is the neck that turns the head" :DQuote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
Amen, or should I write: "Ah women"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Annamariah
I think Agatha Christie usually did a pretty good job in realistically portraying her male characters.
I thought, at the beggining,before it became painfully misogynistic in message, "The French Lieutenants Woman" by John Fowles offered a very interesting portrayel of the female mind.
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is the best male character and except Agatha Christie, I'm not familiar with women writers :p :p Sorry, Bronte and Austen fans!
Well, definitely Pierre Cake( known as Piece Von Cake), by Downing, new rising star on beautiful literature sky!
I've never found a writer who can describe the mind of a woman. That must mean either I have a weird mind or I don't understand women. Weird.
I did Identify with Callie from Middlesex (except for the part on being a hermaphrodite of course), but I can't really remember an specific author.
Women in books are often so boorish and insipid (except for some good manga).
While I am not a woman (so I don't have the same perspective on the matter) I have observed the same thing. No writers describe women's minds, and that includes female writers. I almost get the feeling that woman writers deliberately omit large parts of how women think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakiryu
I think D.H. Lawrence did a beautiful job portraying his female characters. Hehe of course I am not the first forumer to mention him.
Talisin, did you say "I" in your first post?? :eek2:
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Originally Posted by bazarov
:lol: brother Goebbels
Gee I wonder who you are referring to, Grace....Hehehe - you mean me and Pensive - she mentioned him first; I just expounded on that comment.Quote:
Originally Posted by grace86
Gearing up for next short story - Pensive, Grace, and (?)... I will announce it tonight. Happy reading ~ J
A couple of things here. One, my grandmother has been writing for years about the idea that it is harder for a man to write from a woman's perspective as for a woman to write in a man's. Do you think this is true? And the other, this concept I've heard about but don't remember in detail, something about how the male perspective is the independent one, and the female is the dependent one in our society, I guess related to the first. So it's difficult for women to write from a woman's perspective as being the main thing, and discarding the other perspective. And if someone does, is it accepted very much?
But how would you ever know? I'm a man, so I don't know what it's like to be a woman; therefore, how am I equipped to judge whether a male author writes women correctly or accurately? And vice versa - women can't judge whether women writers are painting accurate portrayals of the way men think, because they don't have a basis for comparison.
So I think the only thing we can actually make a judgement on is how people from the opposite sex write about our own sex. And I have to say that I rarely read a woman writer whose portrayals of male characters are at all convincing. The one exception that I can think of off the top of my head is Donna Tartt, whose main character in The Secret History rings true in his thoughts and behaviour as a typical emo wannabe-intellectual college boy.
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Originally Posted by Taliesin
This is possible because writing is mainly fictiously done, and we are in interaction, both male sexes and female sexes, and we can understand one another and they find reflections whether they are male or femable characters.
I would have to agree, Lawrence does a great job with female characters. I know, I'm not a woman, so how can I be so sure? Well, they just seem correct. On the other side of the coin, Hemmingway does a horrible job with female characters.Quote:
Originally Posted by grace86
As to women writers I'm a little hard pressed to recall memorable male characters by a woman novelist. I think the male characters of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights strike me as real. Also Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome struck me as a real man.
Would it be silly to mention JK Rowling? I know a lot of people don't value her work very highly (at least, not as "literature") but I do think she nailed gender remarkably well. I never doubted Harry or Ron as characters, and this is quite remarkable given that they grow up over 7 years. Also, to my knowledge, Rowling does not have a son, so her imagination is really something. A remarkable achievement, writing through the mind of someone not only of the opposite sex also through the stormy years of adolescence.
Dostoevsky's female characters are often quite interesting, most are moulded in the same women however, but "his" women are often the core of the plot (The Idiot, The Gambler), or are at least a very important element (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov)
For some reason the first author that sprung to mind when I read this topic was Anton Chekov. I'm a male so, of course, I can't entirely vouche for the validity of his female characters, but, taking aside the fact that their developments tend to occur in massive epiphanies (which was more due to the fact that he worked mainly in short stories and plays, making epiphanies necessary to the narrative) his female characters seemed to strike me as being particularly stark and realistic.
As far as a female author portraying a male character, the first that comes to mind is Iris Murdoch's Charles Arrowby from "The Sea, The Sea", particularly in the way she describes the feverish irrationality and intensity of jelousy. But then again, that might say more about me then it does about Iris Murdoch, which is another point: Doesn't framing a question about the realism of characters specifically by their gender disposition a person to answer based on their own perspective of what they believe a male/female should be, and not what they actually are?
If some one were to name Lady Macbeth or Heathcliff in this thread, what would that say about their perception of the gender they were reflecting on as a whole, despite the fact that both those characters are realistic? The point I'm trying to make is that great characters are great by virtue of their universal appeal, and not by their gender specificity. Not to criticize this thread, since, after all, there's nothing actually wrong with dwelling on gender issues, but I think sometimes we skew toward the best in ourselves when so many great characters have been forged out of demonizations.
so what about modern female writers portraying modern male characters?
It seems to me as though male characters are in general more convincing than female ones (although that may just be because i'm not male so can't tell the difference), but at least certainly in the way that they seem from a woman's perspective.
Probably the most convincing female characters I've found have been by Jane Austen; Catherine in Northanger Abbey is really easy to identify with as a teenage girl. But then there are women who characterise women really shockingly, like Mary Shelley in Frankenstein (although there is the whole debate as to whether this was done on purpose).
I find some of Shakespeare's female characters quite convincing (taken in the context of the time) as he quite often seems to look at things from the female perspective more than his contemporaries.
I just happened to have finished this book not too long ago, and I must say that I agree with you, subterranean.Quote:
Originally Posted by subterranean
I also agree with this, from what I can remember.Quote:
Originally Posted by _JadeRain_
Yes, and they are often the strongest characters in his novels too. Take Poor Folk, for example.Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
I've never really looked into this, but now that you mention it, Chekhov does seem to portray his female characters realistically. Of course, this is also coming from yet another male perspective. Are there any females here that can vouch for Chekhov's female characters as being true-to-life?Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Crow
Now that I think about it, who am I to say the portrayal of any woman is realistic? Oh dear, as a think further, I realize I haven't read much of anything written by women. (**frantically searches through shelves to find a book written by a woman---finds To Kill a Mocking Bird**) I must say, Harper Lee (and I know it has been mentioned here before) did a wonderful job of depicting her male characters. Ah, now my post will be at least somewhat justifiable :D .
The only thing I've read by Chekhov is Uncle Vanya, and in that I thought that Sonia was very good in showing some of the concerns of young women (like where she tells of how she heard herself being described as 'plain') as well as being quite a convincing character in general. But I wasn't too keen on the characterisation of Yelena because she seems a bit inconsistent and sometimes 2-D. Some people have siad that this may have been his intention in creating her character, but it makes her not very convincing as a woman.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dori
I think Tolstoy portrays women very accurately in "The Kreutzer Sonata." :p
(For anyone who has read this, hopefully you will get that I'm joking.)
Bukowski
Would you care to elaborate?Quote:
Originally Posted by blackbird_9
lol. Not really. I'm just doing a poor job at trying to be funny. :p
Vivian Vande Velde did exceptionally well portraying the female pysche in Heir Apparent
Oh, okay. I don't get it though, since I haven't read anything by Bukowski.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackbird_9
For those who haven't read "The Kreutzer Sonata," here's a taste of Tolstoy's excellent portrayal of women:
"Don't trust a horse in the field, or your wife in your house."
"It is a marvelous thing how full of illusion is the notion that beauty is an advantage. A beautiful woman says all sorts of foolishness, you listen and you don't hear any foolishness, but what you hear seems to you wisdom itself. She says and does vulgar things, and to you it seems lovely. Even when she does not say stupid or vulgar things, but is simply beautiful, you are convinced that she is miraculously wise and moral."
"...but women know perfectly well that the most sublime, and as we call it the most poetic, love depends, not on moral qualities, but on physical proximity and then on the way of doing up the hair, the complextion, the cut of the gown. Ask an experienced coquette who has set herself the task of entrapping a man, which she would prefer to risk: being detected in falsehood, cruelty, even immortality, in the presence of the onewhom she is trying to entice, or to appear before him in a badly made or unbecomig gown,---and everytime she would choose the first."
:p
This is all very reminiscent of one of my track coach's 'sayings': "Women; can't shoot 'em, can't shoot 'em."
I guess that Gustave Flaubert did a great job in "Madame Bovary"
Scout is one of the most annoying literary characters ever. She was so up-herself. needed a good slap that one. none of the female characters were interesting in that book and it was quite sexist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shore Dude
personally i think f. scott fitzgerald wrote women very well. and i agree with the comment about vanity fair and becky sharp.
and tennessee williams was brilliant at writing women: lady, blanche, stella...
take note, lee.
it's hard to write interesting female characters.
Never heard that before. May I ask why?Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
I don't think it's silly to mention Rowling, I was thinking of her too (not that I know how a male adolescent thinks, being female :p)Quote:
Originally Posted by cziffra
One brilliant portrayal of the teenage female mind by a male writer can be found in "The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn", written by Aidan Chambers. The book left quite an impression on me because he simply did not ignore any detail - however gory, sorry gentlemen! - of the female 'experience'. This is from a 70+ guy! Very impressive, if a rather challenging book to get through due to the layout at times (at one point he has two narratives running concurrently, one on either side of the page).
I don't know why, but as a writer, I often find male characters easier to write than female, despite being a girl myself. I find there's less temptation to put your own characteristics into a character of the opposite sex. Hmm...
What do people think of Jane Austen's characterisation of men? A lot of them seem far more one-sided than her female characters (compare Emma's emotional growth with Mr Knightley's fairly constant brooding manner). I don't know if this is a fair assessment or not - I guess it's hard to tell since she rarely writes from the perspective of the male characters.
Anywhoo, that's just my two-pennies on the matter :)
HoVis
***
China in... 70+ days!!!
she went on about being so clever and being better than school but she was too thick to understand everything else and she was annoying and sexist.Quote:
Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*
But that is one of the most important aspects of the novel. The growth and maturation of Scout is one of the foremost themes of the novel. SHe may have been intelligent in terms of her schooling, but what one learns outside of the classroom is what truly defines one's character.
As for her being "annoying" I suppose that's a matter of personal opinion, but how was she sexist?
Viriginia Woolf seems to do so particularly well, but the minds that she chooses to portray are hardly average male ones (particuarly Septimus Smith and Peter Walsh in Mrs Dalloway, so perhaps she avoids the natural traps and pit-falls of cliche by travelling a rare path.
Harper Lee does particularly well, too.
she doesn't really mature that much and nothing really changes at the end. there's just a big smily american happy ending.Quote:
Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*
And we can hardly call her a master of characterisation- she only ever wrote one book, not much of one at that.
D.H. Lawrence and Arturo Perez Reverte as for female characters, for sure!!! :nod:
I don't think D.H. Lawrence always got it right when describing women but to say he is completely wrong would be unfair as well - for his times he did do right by putting out the fact that women, just as men, require sex and that sex is important.
I think Margaret Atwood does a great job in describing males. Be them antagonistic, emotive or plain mysterious she does their mentalities perfectly. Orhan Pamuk understands women's psychologies too to many extents though as most of his narratives that I have read have a male protagonist I cannot know for certain about him. Marquez understands many aspects of women and so does Milan Kundera.
I think Toni Morrison does as well which she proves in her novel Beloved. Stamp Paid is a character who earns our love and respect by being so tragically human. Arundhati Roy understands men as well.
Stephen King does but I am not sure on how a woman acts in his action centered novels but he definitely understands them to many extents. Sydney Sheldon did justice to women characters in the full. But Stephenie Meyer does not. Both Edward and Jacob's potentials becoming drowned in the gooyness of Bella Swan. Her men are ideal nightmares. It's tragic if King is panned for making truthful statements.
Yep. I think Lawrence did well for women. Fitzgerald didn't do too bad. And most of the best female theatre parts were written by Tennessee Williams- and Shakey :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade