fictional fem

fictional woman or cultural actor; her story via literary character types, dramatized gender roles - mysterious or fallen woman; mysterious woman creates tension & drama; shadowy in comparison to fallen woman’s stark visibility & emotional tension

for example:

I) Bertha: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë, characters: Jane & Mr. Rochester and Bertha, Rochester’s wife, a character not merely eccentric, she’s forbidden, a contagion. Madness surrounds her, why else would she be locked in a room set apart from domestic activity - a haunting, untouchable & malevolent character. We never see her as victim. Bertha’s madness, central to intrigue, sets the pace. Problematic literary character. Self immolation releases Bertha - subsequently Mr. Rochester & Jane benefit from her catastrophic end

Is there connection, or empathy, or depth to a character like Bertha or is she a repellant.  How does her characterization reflect the social/cultural history of the era

Does Bertha carry the weight of British empire in that a female protagonist carries particular racial/social constructions; bears the weight across culture & time & place; establish patterns:  

  • feminine personification related to the colonial period

  • a depiction based on social/cultural/racial bias 

  • bias generates perception of the feminine other 

  • Bertha’s problematic - set up for dire outcome

  • colonialism 

  • plantations & slavery

II) Nana: Emile Zola - Nana character: Second Empire & courtesan life; her gender specific character, sexualized, staged, alluring, and dangerous; mirrors or, conversely, carries the weight of Second Empire social and cultural milieu; Nana the temptress, decadent, danger to Parisian society, a contagion, suffers violence and assault; both victim and vamp; problematic & complex; her fate - pain, suffering, disfigurement and death of Nana’s once seductive & valuable - profitable body. Does fictional death work as an antithesis for social and/or cultural apathy

III) Blanche: Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams character- Blanche DuBois; desperate, needy, sexualized, unredeemable; lacks self control, clings to a fabricated, delusional past; sought shelter with her sister Stella and Stella’s husband Stanley; Blanche unwelcome, met with hostility, suffered violence, humiliation & sexual assault; Blanche retreats into madness — insanity the gender specific ultimate finale. But does she have the last word? is it left to a stranger to offer kindness, mercy, redemption or salvation? Does madness offer physical shelter or mental freedom from cruelty, brutality? Blanche the problematic - ostracized victim within specific era re: America’s economic, cultural, class, and gendered milieu

The protagonists: Brontë’s mad Bertha, Zola’s decadent Nana, Williams’ ostracized Blanche. We’re privy to their story.

  • the feminine of the species given particular enigmatic portrayals; burdened with social and cultural mores; restricted to portraying type; ie. gorgons, haloed virgin saints, fallen woman, insanity, hysterics, temptress; Eve - female personification of human fallibility - it’s her fault humanity thrown out of paradise & consequences i.e., human suffering & death