Thursday, July 1, 2010

Well-drawn Female Characters by Male Authors

Some people believe it is hard, perhaps even impossible, to portray believable characters of the opposite sex. Others assert that the talent of good authors allows them to transcend the limitations of their own identities and experiences, and that their imaginations provide the material to portray characters who do not share the author's gender, race, class, age, or other identities. To be more concrete, I have been thinking about which female characters by well-known male authors are realistic and truly convincing. Even after some pondering, a quick consultation with my bookshelves and with the Internet, and a little conversation with and help from my friend B., I could only think of the following outstanding examples: Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Thackeray's Becky Sharp (in "Vanity Fair"), Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Henry James' Isabel Archer (in "Portrait of a Lady"), and Forster's Margaret Schlegel (in "Howards End"). Readers, do you have other examples?
 
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