Female Characters

[Emil Miller]

Gervaise Lantier, the female lead character of L'assommoir by Emil Zola, is one of the finest portrayals of a woman in, not only French, but all literature.
If, after reading the novel, you are in any doubt that woman is a finer creation than man, then you will have misunderstood the story.

[PabloQ]

I do think this is an interesting topic, Richier, and it would be interesting what works you've read that you didn't care for and why.

Just in the brief comments so far there are two observations. Works by women with strong or intriguing feminine characters (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The House of Mirth) are interesting in terms of JBI's observations and point.

Another aspect is how do male authors treat their strong/intriguing female characters. Is is it any different than the female authors and if so how? I don't really know except my experience is that males seem more critical and judmental at times. And the questions can both be flipped around the other way.

Here are some other titles I thought of after my original post:
Three Lives by Gertrude Stein
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane

[Niamh]

To memory, I have never particularly enjoyed any book with a female lead character/perspective. Why should this be?
Can anyone suggest a good one?
I haven't read any Bronte:s or Germaine Greer's Female Eunuch, are these good bets?

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. The main character Margaret Hale is a very head strong character, trying to get her opinion heard in a changing society... well she has opinions, but being a woman doesnt mean people will listen. Maybe even Gaskells Ruth for a harsher view of societies regard for women.

Madame Bovary By Gustav Flaubert is another good strong character.

Moll Flanders By Daniel Defoe

How about Bleak House? Esther is a good tragic character. She is a tough woman after all she goes through.

Good choice!

[Pecksie]

Anna Karenina.

I'll second that one, as well as anything by the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen and Edith Wharton.

On a more contemporary note, Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' is a wonderful example of a gripping novel with a detestable (female) main character, whom I hated throughout the book. Which is marvellous, BTW.

[Bitterfly]

I find the question to be a stange one. Indeed, if in films I always complain there's a sore lack of interesting and memorable female leads, in novels one finds tons of them! What about Lawrence's heroines, Gudrun and Ursula of Women in Love or The Rainbow; or Thomas Hardy's protagonists - Bathsheba or Tess, or even Sue? They might sometimes be downtrodden, but they're strong characters - nothing wishy-washy about them, even Tess. Henry James' heroines are often interesting as well. Hester in The Scarlet Letter is wonderful! Or Maggie from A Mill on the Floss, or the Bennet sisters, to take novels written by female authors. In the 18th century, Moll Flanders or Fanny Hill are far from being soppy.

Someone raised the question of their treatment, and that does seem more problematic, especially in Victorian fiction, since strong or unusual women often are punished at the end of the novel, or are "'tamed" (in Jane Eyre's case, as it seems to be).

[Allannah]

I'm obviously going to recommend the, er, obvious lol...Jane Eyre= evident. But jas, I didn't really like Jane that much. She wasn't...feisty or feminist or anything that she could have been. I like her better as an argumentative ten year old tbh ^^ She's very much average.

Another book that I enjoyed recently was Ann Bronte's second novel, the Tenant of Wildfell Hall- and although the protagonist for half of the novel isn't a women, the women who does tell the other half of the story [in diary format, which makes it more accessible] is awesome. It "reverberated through Victorian Britain" as one of the first feminist novels of its kind and for that I like it even better. It's a very easy classic and Helen is perhaps not the most likeable Bronte character, but is certainly interesting. Lol.
Or Northanger Abbey, although I rather despised Catherine; she was very weak and naive and excitable and stuff. Well, anyway.

[Niamh]

On a more contemporary note, Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' is a wonderful example of a gripping novel with a detestable (female) main character, whom I hated throughout the book. Which is marvellous, BTW.

I agree with you about that. She irked me. Although i did feel pity for her at the end of the book, i never liked her.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=Allannah;655089]I'm obviously going to recommend the, er, obvious lol...Jane Eyre= evident. But jas, I didn't really like Jane that much. She wasn't...feisty or feminist or anything that she could have been. I like her better as an argumentative ten year old tbh ^^ She's very much average.

Any young lady seeking to be 'feisty or feminist' in Victorian times would have been given very short shrift.

[Allannah]

^ Not if seemingly written by a man- Acton Bell; Ann Bronte! It was one of the first of its kind.

[kelby_lake]

I don't like female characters who are 'tomboys'. Part of the reason I disliked Mockingbird, because she was such an annoying narrator.

[Emil Miller]

^ Not if seemingly written by a man- Acton Bell; Ann Bronte! It was one of the first of its kind.

You merely prove my point that it was necessary to pose as a man in order to gain recognition.

[Yessie42]

I strongly recommend The Secret Circle Trilogy and Dark Visions Trilogy, both by L.J. Smith. They might be too juvenille for your tase, but you may like them depending on your age! I hope you like them!

[kandaurov]

What about Lawrence's heroines, Gudrun and Ursula of Women in Love or The Rainbow

Yes, yes indeed, just what I intended to suggest. Though as nails they are.

I also found the girl in Living (Henry Green) an interesting character. I can't for the life of me remember her name, though. Help?

[Allannah]

I thought your point is that a feisty female character would have been given 'short shrift', I must have misunderstood (:

[Dori]

Antigone by Sophocles was pretty good, as was Phaedra by Jean Racine.