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
Last edited by BienvenuJDC; 02-17-2010 at 01:54 AM.
Les Miserables,
Volume 1, Fifth Book, Chapter 3
Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. Highly controversial in its time. Largely forgotten today, unfortunately.
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent
~ Isaac Asimov
Moll Flanders by DeFoe
Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent
~ Isaac Asimov
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
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).
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.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Anne of Green Gables
Vilette
Promethea (comic)
Clan of the Cave Bear
A Doll's House (play)
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic)
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
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!