Of male and female characters

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Originally Posted by subterranean

But Dostoevsky also gave good descriptions for the female characters in the Poor People.

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I just happened to have finished this book not too long ago, and I must say that I agree with you, subterranean.

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Originally Posted by _JadeRain_

Nathaniel Hawthorne also masters the female essence with Hester Prynne in _The Scarlet Letter_.

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I also agree with this, from what I can remember.

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Originally Posted by Etienne

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)

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Yes, and they are often the strongest characters in his novels too. Take Poor Folk, for example.

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Originally Posted by Old Crow

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.

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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?

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 .

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Originally Posted by Dori

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?
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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.

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

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Originally Posted by blackbird_9

Bukowski

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Would you care to elaborate?

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

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Originally Posted by blackbird_9

lol. Not really. I'm just doing a poor job at trying to be funny. :p

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Oh, okay. I don't get it though, since I haven't read anything by Bukowski.

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"

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Originally Posted by Shore Dude

Haper Lee is just a master of characterization in general. Scout is one of my favorite and most lovable characters.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Scout is one of the most annoying literary characters ever. She was so up-herself. needed a good slap that one.

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Never heard that before. May I ask why?

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Originally Posted by cziffra

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.

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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)

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!!!

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Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*

Never heard that before. May I ask why?

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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.

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.