Ah yeah, Antigone :) I like the Anouilh version.
What about Clytemnestra in Agamemnon? :D
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Ah yeah, Antigone :) I like the Anouilh version.
What about Clytemnestra in Agamemnon? :D
Almost all of the previous posts focus on classic literature, with obviously many great novels – and female characters. Many contemporary authors have also construct their stories on female heroes, often with very interesting results. The first group that comes into my mind is the Spanish-speaking novelists (Spanish and Latin-Americans), which have put women in varied and extremely interesting central roles, mirroring the place of women in their own societies. Here is a short random sample of novels worth to discover:
Mario Vargas Llosa – Elogio de la madrastra
Isabel Allende – Eva Luna
Julia Álvarez – How the García girls lost their accents
Gabriel García Marquez – Erendira
Manuel Puig – Cae la noche tropical
José Carlos Somoza – Clara y la penumbra
Joe Valdés – La nada cotidiana
Rosa Montero – La hija del Caníbal
Carmen Llera Moravia – Georgette
In Europe, female characters are central to some of the greatest books of well-known authors such as:
Heinrich Boll – Die verloren ehre der Katharina Blum
Thomas Mann – Lotte in Weimar
Robert Musil – Drei Frauen
Karen Blixen – Ehrengard
Elfrede Jelinek – Lust / The pianist
Pascal Bruckner – L’enfant divine
Amelie Nothomb – Antéchrista / Stupeur et tremblement / Hygiène de l’assassin and many others
Carmen Corvito – La bruttina stagionata
There are many similar examples in the English-speaking literature, which I understand is closer to many LNF members’ reading habits. Some coming to my mind:
Ayn Rand – We the living
Sylvia Plath – Bell Jar
Patrick White – The aunt’s story
Margaret Atwood – Lady Oracle / The Handmaid’s tale
Finally, two favourites from other parts of the world:
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala – Heat & Dust
Raphael Confiant -Mamzelle Libellule (Marisose)
I guess Jane Eyer.. she's my fav. female character and the stronged presonality i ever seen :-)
I don't know if I would say that - I think she voluntarily undergoes self-torcher because of a lack of self-strength.Quote:
Originally Posted by hoope
As for strongest women characters, maybe Tatyana from Eugene Onegin? Certainly one of the best.
I haven't read Jane Eyre but what is self-torcher? Does she set light to herself in the story?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
He determination doesnt necessarily make her a strong character. Margaret Hale in North and South is a lot stronger.Quote:
Originally Posted by hoope
I think JBI means 'self-torture'. I actually think she proved herself to be strong and independent enough and the owner of a sound moral integrity, otherwise Jane Eyre wouldn't be so often read as being a proto-feminist novel.
Dear friends, I repeat my appeal: do any of you by any change remember the name of the girl in Henry Green's Living? I'm racking my brains over this.
It's not Jane Eyre's determination that makes her a strong character, it's exactly the fact that she was evidently torn but ended up choosing the option which wasn't necessarily the one she would like to have chosen or the one she was expected to choose but the one which she felt was 'right', one which indeed symbolised an emancipation from a male order and a subordination to her own values. That's why I too think she is worthy of mention in this thread.
Sorry for the somewhat dodgy word choice, but I'm trying not to spoil it to anyone who hasn't read it. Don't forget to tell me the name of the girl in Living if it crosses your mind :)
Have you thought of googling it?
Yeah, but I did it for a while and, not having found it, got lazy and just asked here :) I thought it was Lily, but then I thought I could have been led to believe it having read Joyce's 'The Dead' only two days ago. Turns out Henry Green's character is Lily as well. Not particularly strong or remarkable in any way, but I liked her, especially the bits when she's in the cinema.
i was asking myself the exact same thing!Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
Not sure why. Do some research on the internet on female poets. Maybe that would help? I hope so.
Cat
She voluntarily sees herself as weak and plain and unlovable as a means of justifying her petty existence, and creating a reason for self-pity. Her notions of her own plainess are used by her to deprecate herself, and therefore justify her own self loathing. Yes, I would call that self-torture, especially when it gets mixed up with the obscure romance, of which she can never feel herself capable of being loved, or being worth notice. I believe the Torcher instead of torture was a typo when I guess I wasn't thinking - sorry for the mistake. I must have been preoccupied with the books ending, and trying to add that to my argument, and had missed the fact that I substituted the homophone in there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
That doesn't sound like Jane Eyre to me. She bemoans her lack of beauty, like a lot of other teenage girls, but never feels she's unworthy of being loved by Rochester. She is quite aware that he desires her. She just feels that he isn't going to marry her, for worldly reasons, and even finds fault with him for this. She's only being realistic. Once he offers to marry her, she stops agonising about her plainness.
No self-loathing either. She resists the temptation of becoming Rochester's mistress with this proclamation, "I care for myself."
Why she allows herself to be bullied by St. John Rivers when she is able to resist Rochester's bullying is more problematic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gretchen
I like "Anne of Green Gables". When I read it, I feel I was in the Eward Island, and enjoy the beautiful senery there while enjoy the life.:yawnb: