Well-Written Female Characters?
It's been said that Chuck doesn't write women well. He may not, but I'm trying to think of a male writer who does. They're pretty scarce.
That hack Hemmingway certainly never got the hang of it. F. Scott? Nope, Daisy was never believable as anything other than a plot point. Vonnegut... Does he even use women characters? I can think of the one in Cat's Cradle, and she was pretty two-dimensional. Oh, and the pornstar Montana Wildeblood in Slaughterhouse. THERE's a well-written character. Hm.... Moby Dick? No women at all. We gotta go all the way back to The Scarlet Letter for a good well-written female character (I can't speak for Gone With the Wind; I've neither read it nor seen the film), but then Hawthorne couldn't write children - you think even in Colonial times that a four year-old Pearl would say, [i]"Pray Thee, Mother, wither thou goest anon?"[/i] Not on your motherfucking life.
So, yeah, this is a problem in American Lit which largely lacks well-written female characters. Let's not limit it to American Lit. Please give me some [b]well-written[/b] famale characters from Modern Literature (let's say the last 200 years) and let's try not to just throw out a list of names - let's give some reasons, too.
Tuffy, do you want examples of male authors only?
[QUOTE=Lisa]Tuffy, do you want examples of male authors only?[/QUOTE]
Dammit. See, I lost my original point there halfway through.... Yes, let's assume that women may are able to write women characters more easily than men can (which eliminates Gone With the Wind as an example...)
So, yeah, let's have [b]Men Who Can Write Women[/b].
Tuffy, you didn't lose your point, I"m just retarded sometimes.
Okay, the only book that came to my mind immediately is one I read years ago.
[U]The World I Made for Her [/U] , by Thomas Moran. It was an obscurity I found browsing down the bookstore aisles years ago. The narrator is confined to an ICU bed, on a ventilator, in and out of consciousness, so his entire world are these nurses, particularly Nuala, who care for him. He pieces together what he knows w/ what he imagines, his fantasies. . .I"m not doing the book justice.. .but, I felt his female characters were believable at the time of my reading the book. And, obviously, it's stayed w/ me for years. I always wondered how the author knew what it was like to be doped up on stuff and to have an ICU atmosphere so accurately portrayed, and when I went to look the book up on Amazon, turns out the author did a have a harrowing experience in real life. . .reads very authentically on all levels. Is this what you wanted Tuffy?
Yeah, like that.
Reminds me suddenly of The Big Nurse in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest... It's been so long since I read that, I don't remember how three-dimensional she was portrayed. Anyone want to comment on her?
Also, I'd like to see narrators or main characters who are women written by men - as Misty was in Diary.
Shakespeare.
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[RIGHT][COLOR=SlateGray][SIZE=1]If I wanted someone to sing my praise, I'd have called my mother...[/SIZE][/COLOR][/RIGHT]
I think Iain Banks did a pretty good job with a female MC in [u]The Business[/u], although the novel itself was a bit too airportish--if that's a word--for me.
I'm not sure if [u]The Wasp Factory[/u] really counts as a good example.
[QUOTE=sevenblu]Shakespeare.[/QUOTE]
...wrote plays 500+ years ago. I'm hoping we can find some good characters that would be a little more contemporary (and, you know, cite examples and reasons... I would hate to see this turn into another [i]just list 'em[/i]-type thread. We've got plenty of those.)
Anna Karenina, I think, is a prime example of what we are looking for.
Jeffery Eugenides
He wrote 'the virgin suicides' which I haven't read (the movie was good, though).
But more importantly he can write [I]hermaphrodites[/I] as seen in the pulitzer-prize-winning 'middlesex'
.JPE "owenwarland's picture")
[QUOTE=sevenblu]Shakespeare.[/QUOTE]
Hey Tuffy, if you're not buying little Pearl speaking that way, then you should discount Shakespeare on the basis of little 14 year old Juliet speaking in iambic pentameter. Only fair, as one of my English professors pointed out in college that those speeches are way too complicated for a girl that young to deliver.
And Hawthorne did a masterful job of it with Hester Prynne. Though some of his characters in his short stories come across as cardboard cutouts.
.JPG "mugwump's picture")
Joyce has some well crafted female characters I believe.
What?
[QUOTE=mugwump]Joyce has some well crafted female characters I believe.[/QUOTE]
Which ones?
And while we're mentioning people, I like Sherman Alexie's characterizations of females. Though it always seems he's writing more about Indians than males or females. Perhaps that's the trick.
[QUOTE=owenwarland]Which ones?[/QUOTE]
Usually Molly Bloom gets mentioned when talking about Joyce, but I'm taking my time getting to [I]Ulysses[/I]. Right now getting into [I]Dubliners[/I].
just thought I'd throw him into the discussion.
What?
[QUOTE=owenwarland]Hey Tuffy, if you're not buying little Pearl speaking that way, then you should discount Shakespeare on the basis of little 14 year old Juliet speaking in iambic pentameter. Only fair, as one of my English professors pointed out in college that those speeches are way too complicated for a girl that young to deliver.
And Hawthorne did a masterful job of it with Hester Prynne. Though some of his characters in his short stories come across as cardboard cutouts.[/QUOTE]
We both know that the plays were never meant to be taken as literal speech patterns, O.W. (We also both know they were delivered by young [i]men[/i], too...) Although they were, I'm convinced, easier to understand back then, as a lot of the pronunciation and meanings have changed - "Get thee to a nunnery" meant something quite different in those days, and "hours" and "whores" were homonyms...
Hester _is_ a good example, the best that I could come up with (and I'm not a big fan of the book...)
[QUOTE=mugwump]Usually Molly Bloom gets mentioned [/QUOTE]
I thought of Molly, but she really doesn't appear as a full-fledged character until the last chapter. The peripheral females in Joyce's books are handled nicely, though. I'm thinking first of The Dead, but there are other examples...
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]I thought of Molly, but she really doesn't appear as a full-fledged character until the last chapter. The peripheral females in Joyce's books are handled nicely, though. I'm thinking first of The Dead, but there are other examples...[/QUOTE]
well, like I said, just getting started. But I will get to The Dead in a short while.
What?
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]We both know that the plays were never meant to be taken as literal speech patterns, O.W. (We also both know they were delivered by young [i]men[/i], too...) Although they were, I'm convinced, easier to understand back then, as a lot of the pronunciation and meanings have changed - "Get thee to a nunnery" meant something quite different in those days, and "hours" and "whores" were homonyms...
Hester _is_ a good example, the best that I could come up with (and I'm not a big fan of the book...)[/QUOTE]
Wally Lamb, who wrote "She's Come Undone". Couldn't believe a guy wrote it. But it had his picture on the back, and he's a MAN, baby.
[COLOR=Cyan]"The only performance that makes it-that REALLY makes it-[I]that makes its all the way[/I]-is the one that achieves madness. Are you with me?"... "I'm with you."[/COLOR]
William Gibson writes good female characters. Strong but decidely feminine and have a good, solid, female perspective of men.
Andrew Wagner did some good, weird, work with Morvern Callar as well.
Damn, this is tougher than I thought.
Fucking men, bastards, the lot of us.
I was here. Then I wasn't. Then I was again.
I am totally unfamiliar with a lot of these...
yeah id agree with Gibson .. .
what about DH Lawrence..?
What about him?
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]What about him?[/QUOTE]
well, i havent read [I]Sons and Lovers[/I], but [I]Lady Chatterly's Lover[/I] has a pretty strong and vivid characterisation of the title Lady. its a very emotionally charged book,( im sure you've heard of it, if you havent read it... controversial when it first came out, considered pornographic, etc etc) [I]The Rainbow[/I] also has excellent characters, though its by no means a pleasant read at times. I think what i like about Lawrence is that his characters are still relative and fairly fresh today, even though he was writing in the early part of the century. his books are somewhat about the class systems, but it doesnt seem to be the main focus of the book as in say, a jane austen book.
I think Eve in Will Baer's two books(mostly "Penny Dreadful") is a great female character. She was one of the few characters in all the books I've read that I really felt for while reading.
Kit!, thanks. That's the kind of response I'm looking for here.
RJ, I know I'll get around to reading Baer one of these days. I should start with Penny Dreadful then?
Gustave Flaubert, who wrote Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary was a tragic heroine. She was supposed to be representative of an entire class, but she was well written and also representative of Flaubert himself. He even said so, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi."
Maddy comes through with a classic!
I should compile all these somehow and present them as a monograph...
i would like to add truman capote. his depiction of holly golightly was wonderful.
THATS SO +3 STILETTO DUDE
I've only seen the movie... I'd forgotten he'd written that.
also the slightly retarded aunt from "a christmas memory" and the tomgirl from "other voices other rooms"
all=very good
THATS SO +3 STILETTO DUDE
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]RJ, I know I'll get around to reading Baer one of these days. I should start with Penny Dreadful then?[/QUOTE]
I'd start with Kiss Me Judas because it's the first of the two books.
[QUOTE=rjw104]I'd start with Kiss Me Judas because it's the first of the two books.[/QUOTE]
Cheers.
So Tuffy, your question about the majority of male writers not writing well-crafted female characters is true, and as I pour over my library, I tend to agree that it is, this leads me to another question: if writers write what they know, then should male writers avoid writing females when possible? Should they stick to characters with heavy doses of testosterone, as Hemingway did? Or should they look deeper into the other side of the female experience, examine it, and try to recreate it, as little Mary Shelley did in reverse in Frankenstein? I'd like to know how you feel about this, because I don't even know how I feel, and you've made me think, which is always good.
Wiliam Makepiece Thackery wrote Vanity Fair, which was kind of like a soap opera the way it was released in separate issues, in a gossipy tone and focused on money and class in mini societies, but the characters of Becky and Amelia were still full and vivid.
Auntie Mame, written by a man. Drag Queen inspiration material.
Sophocles; Antigone
[QUOTE=Maddetchke Malorkus]Gustave Flaubert, who wrote Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary was a tragic heroine. She was supposed to be representative of an entire class, but she was well written and also representative of Flaubert himself. He even said so, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi."[/QUOTE]
Mai oui! I think Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence (fucking mama's boy!) wrote good female characters, but that's from my manly perspective.
Lately, I've read 2 out of 3 of the [I]Tuesday Next[/I] series by Jasper Fforde so far. Tuesday Next is the female protagonist and first person central character, but I have a hard time sometimes buying the voice as a female character. I get this feeling that "she" looks at the world the way that a man does, but I wonder if that's just my own bias of gender stereotypes.
This is a really good idea.
Owen does bring up an interesting point.
The problem of writers writing only "what you know" can be that they become stagnant and pointless.
Writers should (at least every once in a while) try something new so they can broaden their own horizens as well as ours.
What?
See, I dunno what's realistic as to what women think or not. I've always thought Stephen King did a good job on all his characters. Geez, did anyone read the unabridged The Stand? He added an extra couple hundred pages of character development. I thought all the characters in that book were well written. There was a female protagonist in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which is another King favorite of mine. To me, the problem with King has [i]never[/i] been characters or their development, it's always been endings. He writes (in my humble opinion) 500 pages of great story and 100 pages of the worst ending ever (e.g Pet Sematary and Needful Things).
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[QUOTE=Lazlosdead]See, I dunno what's realistic as to what women think or not. I've always thought Stephen King did a good job on all his characters. Geez, did anyone read the unabridged The Stand? He added an extra couple hundred pages of character development. I thought all the characters in that book were well written. There was a female protagonist in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which is another King favorite of mine. To me, the problem with King has [i]never[/i] been characters or their development, it's always been endings. He writes (in my humble opinion) 500 pages of great story and 100 pages of the worst ending ever (e.g Pet Sematary and Needful Things).[/QUOTE]
Now see, I've always thought the exact opposite, that King spends way too much time on exposition. For Salem's Lot, which is a book of roughly 400 pages, he's got a hundred pages of getting to know the characters and the town before anything substantial happens. And as far as writing women goes, I think King just writes in a common American voice to which people can relate because they speak much the same way (the reason I've always thought he's such a massive seller in the US), and that it has nothing to do with the sex of his characters.
[QUOTE=owenwarland] if writers write what they know, then should male writers avoid writing females when possible?[/QUOTE]
Obviously not. This is the problem.
I think that there has be be a certain amount of literary trickery involved. Just as one doesn't write dialogue the way people [i]really[/i] speak, but employs a trick-of-words to make it read the way we [i]think[/i] we speak, one has to find a way to give the illusion of a totally unknowable character is understood completely. Extreme example: When The Dark One, Satan, the embodiment of all Evil in Its Most Pure Form, appears in a novel, the author clearly can't relate on a personal level to an archetype of Evil incarnate, but must instead use a certain amount of gimickry and effects. Unfortunately, women are more complex than Satan.
[QUOTE=Maddetchke Malorkus]Auntie Mame, written by a man. Drag Queen inspiration material. [/QUOTE]
Good call... but that [i]was[/i] a biography, so Mame Dennis was already a three-dimentional "character" in that she was real.
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]Good call... but that [i]was[/i] a biography, so Mame Dennis was already a three-dimentional "character" in that she was real.[/QUOTE]
aah, i always wondered about how much of that was actually true though...
i love that book and movie. rosalind russel was hilarious.
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck] Unfortunately, women are more complex than Satan.[/QUOTE]
Hahahahahaha!!! I couldn't agree more.
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]Dammit. See, I lost my original point there halfway through.... Yes, let's assume that women may are able to write women characters more easily than men can (which eliminates Gone With the Wind as an example...)
So, yeah, let's have [b]Men Who Can Write Women[/b].[/QUOTE]
Michael Chabon (Rosa Saks, Ethel Clayman, Sammy's Grandma)
Chuck (All the women in Diary are well done, Marla Singer, Fertility, etc.)
Thomas Pyncyhon (Oedipa Maas, Esther from V.)
Stephen King (lots of examples)
Clive Barker (lots of examples
Irvine Welsh (Kelly in Trainspotting)
Are they authentic? Dunno, you'd have to ask a woman. Some people might find Oedipa Maas, for instance, to be a misogynistic portrayal (Esther too, though I'd say Esther's nose job in V. is more of a misanthropic/S&M study).
When we call soccer 'football' the terrorists have won.
better pynchon example is katje borgesius imo
[QUOTE=lofivinyl]i would like to add truman capote. his depiction of holly golightly was wonderful.[/QUOTE]Yeah but no girl is actually like that.
Right now I am reading 'Cruddy' and that is a real girl.
By the way guy's don't write well about women. Read Pleasant Gehman please.
[QUOTE=kl0pper]better pynchon example is katje borgesius imo[/QUOTE]
I keep meaning to read Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland, but I read Mason & Dixon and Slow Learner this year, so I'm probably confused enough for the time being.
Someone I can't believe I omitted from the list is John Irving. The World According to Garp, A Widow for One Year, The Fourth Hand, those all have great female characters.
When we call soccer 'football' the terrorists have won.
Someone mentioned Irving, I think. Only thing I've read is Garp, and I'd have to agree that his female characters are pretty well-rounded.
[QUOTE=Kit!]
i love that book and movie. rosalind russel was hilarious.[/QUOTE]
Probably in my top 10 or 15 favorite films of all-time. We watch it at least once a year, usually around Thanksgiving.
zooey by salinger
William Faulkner
Elmore Leonard
Kurt Vonnegut
When we call soccer 'football' the terrorists have won.
iceberg slim writes believable women characters.
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THATS SO +3 STILETTO DUDE