Women characters in literature


With Womens Day approaching soon it's time to get a little feminist. Celebrate womanhood and everything feminist. Saree, heirlooms, ethnic, shopping, housekeeping and most other women things. As Storywala it is also an occasion to explore some feminine in literature. No not another list of female authors. But some interesting characters in literature- fiction or mythological. There are so many fictional characters some strong and some so vulnerable. They have various shades of characters. Love, duty, power, honor, drives them just like men. Then what makes these women different. 

Strong women characters 

Mahabharat 
Draupadi the strongest women we know. Wife of five men, dishonored in public, sold by husbands, avenged by husbands. The vile woman who could never forgive her tormentors. The entire family died for the dishonor of a woman. A society can never grow till it insults it's women, sells them and demeans them. 

Ramayana 
Seeta, the woman who loved her husband. But he didn't love her enough. Society and role took over his love and wisdom. The women left with her children for the honour and say if society. What kind of justice is this! She stood strong still. 


Suraj ka Satvan Ghoda
Women who stood against society, fought the society. All three women were strong and beautiful in their own way. Ordinary yet strong. 

Half of a Yellow Sun
Both sisters were strong despite a broken country and love calamities. The beautiful and strong sisters who stood their own in a mans world. When the men are at war it's not he women who keep things together. 


Jane Austen
All her books and all her heroine are strong as a stick. Stubborn and spoilt they take strong stands. But still they are ready to look all docile and simple for a good boy. The Austen heroines can tend to be vain and silly but they are still strong. Not much can dampen their spirits. Although their only goal in life is to get a good catch arrr match. So not sure if that makes them strong. 


Game of thrones 
The strongest women more than the cat woman and super woman are the women in game of thrones. Denerys, Cersie, Sansa, Aria, Melasandre, Margorie - each of them strong, unique and brilliant. An epic is an epic only if it has epic women. 

Vulnerable woman characters
Docile and gentle, who crumble and need a man to protect. Let's not confuse them with Austen girls who pretend or presume their need for men. The fact is they are very well happy with their girlfriends or sisters and their happening social lives and sororities. But they can't take a tough life, they either away at the sight of misery. They need men to protect them. 


Sophie's choice 
The simple Sophie which crumbles at the miseries of life. Sophie who had to choose one of her child. The one who didn't live and the one who couldn't live. To stand strong against an enemy in world war. Are women truly not built to stand wars. May be that's why women should become political leaders. You will not talk to your neighbors but at least you wouldn't bomb them. 


Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The surreal poetic and crazy fall of Sylvia. A world of her misery, her paranoia, her sadness. She wasn't mad, she just didn't know how to stay happy. That's why get life makes a great tragedy, for she had potential and still she dies so young. More like mad genius. 


Rabindranath Tagore
They are vulnerable like a flower. Some live, some crumble. They go through their dilemmas of love, marriage and children. But yes they are vulnerable and that's what some men romance with. They like their women vulnerable just like Tagore! Given that all his heroines are Bengali women, they are supposed to be strong and all. But Tagore describes these women as delicate flowers who are to be loved and cared for, if plucked they will die. 


Wuthering heights
Catherine the love of Hawthrone, she was vulnerable and fragile which lost herself with her love. Tragic Love stories are made of fragile women, if women were strong love stories won't be tragic. Not necessary, in the book love story the leading lady is strong in her sickness too and still dies so the story becomes tragic. 

So who are you strong or vulnerable. At the end of the day we are all heroines of our lives. We choose when we become and we can be anyone! 

Comments

Popular Posts