Thank you!
Thank you!
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Characters name is Dagny Taggert. I don't believe an author has ever created a character that exuberated both sex appeal and brilliance as Rand did on this one. And the novel is mind-blowing as well.
Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser
Pride and Preejudice by Jane Austen
Camille by Aleandre Dumas fils
Medea in various Greek plays
Clytemnestra in the Oresteia
Antigone by Sophocles
Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind
The Wizard of Oz ~Frank L Baum
Dorothy Gale...of course
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. Highly controversial in its time. Largely forgotten today, unfortunately.
Moll Flanders by DeFoe
Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan is a must-read for you if you like strong women in literature.
I'd second Hester Prynne. Also, pretty much any Greek drama with women in (Electra, Medea, Antigone, Clytemnestra...the list of strong women is endless).
Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice
Lolita
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Not sure if Madame Bovary (Flaubert) or Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) count as 'strong' female protagonists, but they are central to the books. Ditto Mrs Dalloway (Woolf).
Kinbote, your name's from Pale Fire, isn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kinbote
Yes, the eminent Charles Kinbote, the nosy neighbour, esteemed poetry commentator and King of Zembla (or possibly one of none of those things). One of my favourite books.
Can Jane Eyre be missed out here?
Hardy's Tess of the d'Urervilles has a strong character too. As does Far from the Madding Crowd.
Anne of Green Gables
Vilette
Promethea (comic)
Clan of the Cave Bear
A Doll's House (play)
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic)
Or you could read Top Girls- it's an all-female cast and the first scene starts with famous women from the ages having dinner together!
by Alexandre Dumas ,Denise Baudu in The Ladies Paradise by Emile Zola,Eugenie Grandet from the novel with the same name by Balzac , Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd, Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair and Moll Flanders by Defoe ; Medea in the play written by Euripides and so on ...............
Jane Eyre in the book of the same name.
Blood and Guts in Highschool by Kathy Acker.
Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell
to say Lady Chatterley and Fanny Hill?
wrote : Pamela or virtue Rewarded .
I am reading a book called The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio... it is a book about 10 young people, 7 women, and 3 men, who go to the country to escape the plague. while in the country, each person tells a story each day to help pass the time. I was pleasently surprised to find that the female protagonists in these stories are actually very strong and resourceful, given the time period, and the stories themselves, while maybe not on as good literature as, say Shakespeare, are very witty.
Chaucer too the same thing right? Canterbury Tales?
The protagonist (unnamed) in Margaret Atwood's SURFACING is a strong character. The novel is written in stream of consciousness.Quote:
What are some books that have a strong female character as the protagonist?
Not novels, but Maya Angelou's I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS and Isak Denison's OUT OF AFRICA.
Doris Lessong CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE ( a five novel series)
Also by Lessing: The Diaries of Jane Somers, The Diary of a Good Neighbor, The Golden Notebook, The Fifth Child, The Grandmothers, The Summer Before the Dark
Isabel Allende's THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
Thomas Hardy's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD and TESS OF THE D'UBERVILLES
Gloria Naylor's THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE
Margaret Drabble's THE RADIANT WAY
Jamaica Kincaids's ANNIE JOHN
Amy Tan's THE JOY LUCK CLUB
Edith Wharton's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH
Kate Chopin's THE AWAKENING
Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE
Honoré de Balzac's EUGENIE GRANDET
Emile Zola's THERESE RAQUIN
Carson McCullers' THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER
Truman Copote's BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S
Boris Pasternak's DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
William Styron's SOPHIE'S CHOICE
Daniel DeFoe's MOLL FLANDERS
Andrée Chedid's FROM SLEEP UNBOUND
Ann Vickers by Sinclair Lewis - a thoroughly developed and sensitively done character
Tess is a strong character, certainly, but she exhibits that strength in her endurance of suffering.
I don't agree that Lily Bart is a strong female character -- quite the opposite. Or did you have some other female character of the novel in mind?Quote:
Originally Posted by myrna22
Oh, how can we forget Portia from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Viola from Twelfth Night. Both are very strong characters concerning that Shakespeare belonged to a patriarchal age.:cool:
Here are some more:
Beatrice Okoh in Anthills of the Savannah - by Chinua Achebe
Ursula Iguaran in 100 Years of Solitude - by Marquez
Depends whether the thread starter meant strongly characterised or characterised as strong, doesn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lulim
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Yes -- it wasn't clear to me that it could have been meant this way. Thanks :)Quote:
Originally Posted by blp
The thread starter meant a female protagonist who is also a bodybuilder :goof:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lulim
Haven't thought of it like this .:svengo:
Mmm. Well there's a surprise.Quote:
Originally Posted by keilj
Million Dollar Baby?
The first one I thought of is Helen Graham The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , by Anne Bronte.
I believe she is a strong character, though she doesn't triumph. She does what she can to survive, to achieve what she believes is her place in society through the means she has learned are the appropiate means to do so; she makes mistakes. She's human, but not weak. Like all tragic heros, she realizes her mistakes at the end. She's a wonderful character.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lulim
Yes, it very much depends on this. A strong character, male or female, may not be one who triumphs. For example, both Hamlet and Macbeth do not triumph. Would anyone say these are not strong male characters? Is Willy Loman in DEATH OF A SALESMAN a weak character?Quote:
Originally Posted by blp
All female characters by Nicci French.
Also, Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice", and Anna Karenina
Oooo, oooo! And Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing!! :banana:Quote:
Originally Posted by aliengirl
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
Bathsheba Everdene and Jane Eyre both have strong characters. Helen Graham in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall also has a great moral power like Tess to face the evils of the world.