Your favorite female anti-hero?

Zoe Heller had an interesting and sometimes withering essay in this week's New York Times book review section on likable fictional characters.

Http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/are-we-too-concerned-that-characters-be-likable.html?ref=review

Any favorite female anti-heroes? Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca comes to mind immediately. So does the narrator in "Gillespie and I."

These aren't just flat characters designed as foils for the heroine (Mrs. Norris or Mrs. Bennet), but fully-drawn and gloriously awful.

I immediately think of Olive Kitteridge. I couldn't be more thrilled that they are making a film version with Frances McDormand, although she will probably not be a big woman like she was in the book.

Mine would have to be Undine Spragg from The custom of the country by Edith Wharton. She is deliciously awful and absolutely compelling.

Duh! Amy Dunne from Gone Girl. So obvious that I missed it.

Becky Sharp! Also Trollope's Lizzie Eustace.

Ah, I LOVE Lizzie Eustace!

But I don't see Olive Kitteridge as an anti-hero, possibly because I am too much like her ...

Margaret Atwood has some wonderfully awful anti-heroes, notably Cordelia in Cat's Eye and Zenia in The Robber Bride.

I'm so glad someone asked this question because it has brought home to me how many female anti-heroes are just caricatures invented by men (Milady, anyone?).

I always hated the aunt in Jane Eyre. She's not in most of the book, but where she is, her part is pretty significant.

7> I wasn't going to mention her since she's more a "villain" than an "anti-heroine" and a rather minor character, but since you mention Jane Eyre's Sarah Reed, I'll mention my favorite literary villain, Miss Scatcherd. Even her name! Doesn't it sound like Jane and Helen running their fingernails across a slate board?

And I'm not so sure either that Olive Kitteridge is an anti-heroine. Becky Sharp, though, certainly is, and she's one of the top.

Speaking of the Brontës, there's definitely Catherine Earnshaw. Oooh, and I just thought of Muriel Spark's Jean Brodie.

There's Lady Macbeth -- and probably a few others in Shakespeare. And Hedda Gabler and possibly some others from Ibsen. Anti-heroines, I suspect, are for whatever reason more prevalent in drama than in prose. I'm thinking top-of-my-head of Webster's The White Devil and Racine's Phèdre.

Also, what about Cressida in Boccaccio, Chaucer, more so Henryson, and especially Shakespeare? (By the time of Shakespeare's version, though, Cressida isn't at all "heroic.")

I guess that I am confused about the definition of antihero. I agree, CurrerBell, that an antihero is not the villain (antagonist) of the piece. But I always thought of an antihero as the protagonist (central character) who has little or no moral or heroic virtues, such as selflessness, nobility or courage.

I think that this idea of an antihero is somewhat at odds with the notion of the hero of a greek tragedy--who is always brought down by a tragic flaw. Catherine Earnshaw, I think, would be the hero of a classical tragedy. Not Lady Macbeth, either, because she is not the central character. Macbeth himself is a classical tragic hero, flaw being ambition.

So that is why I thought of Olive Kitteridge. She is the central character, but she possesses few of the attributes of a "hero." She is an overweight, middle-aged busybody. She does show some compassion and effects some good results-- but so does a character like "Joe Buck" in Midnight Cowboy. In college film courses, that character was said to embody the modern antihero. He also showed compassion toward the Ratso Rizzo character.

So I guess it depends on how we define these terms.

I'm thinking of a major character in a work of fiction by a woman writer, a character who is multi-dimensional but whom you find awful, in both senses of that word, because she chooses to be.

I think it's interesting to think about how women writers define and examine venality and sin (if that term works for you) in other women.

Male writers? Pffft. Their bad women are often turn-ons in some way, women they want to punish or dominate.

Yes, Muriel Spark has a lot of awful women. A lot of awful men, too!

How about Scarlet O'Hara?

I like the idea of looking for female-authored anti-heroines. You're right, Spark is full of them. And how about Toni Morrison's Sula?

>11 Nickelini:. Scarlet O'Hara is an antihero by definition. Written by a woman, too, so she meets nohrt4me2's criteria. You'd think there'd be others, but they do seem to be in short supply.

I don't want to fall into the Intentional Fallacy here, but I think Margaret Mitchell would be surprised to learn that Scarlett is viewed as an anti-heroine.

New rule: You have to say WHY you think the character is an anti-hero. I'd say Scarlett is selfish, manipulative, and racist. I'm not sure she'd be seen in quite that harsh a light 70 years ago.

Re: Scarlett O'Hara, I don't think that stealing your sister's fiancé or marrying a man just to spite someone else was every heroic, so, no, I don't think Margaret Mitchell would be surprised. I don't think that amount of selfishness and spitefulness was ever a positive character trait! ;>)

how about dagny taggart or dominique francon from ayn rand? (not that rand would *ever* think of them as anti-heroine *at all.* frankly i'm not sure i do either, but nohrt4me2 mentions today's standards, so...)

I'd add Jane Austen's Lady Susan to the mix. She's conniving, manipulative, selfish to the point of putting her own schemes for wealth & privilege above her only daughter's happiness, but my goodness, she is so cleverly written that she is delightful to read about!

Probably Amber from Forever Amber. She's such a conniver, but there was really no way to be a good person in her situation.

I also love Tess from Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

If I can have a separate category for comics, Maggie and Hopey from Love and Rockets and Zero from Hopeless Savages.

None of these characters are particularly well-behaved, though Tess certainly tried.

How about Lily Bart in the House of Mirth?

>15 vwinsloe:--Well, she did marry Frank to save the family home, and it could be argued that the only person spited when she marries Charles is Scarlett herself. Let's not forget that the reason she did most things was because she was trying to save Tara or Ashley. She pulled more people through starvation than not. She did not have a lot of options. No one approved, but most people enjoyed the fruits of her labors. She was only 28 or so when the book ends.

Don't be trash-talking Scarlett. Life is hard!

:-)
Miss Scatcherd on the other hand, is a bully. She takes great pleasure in torturing young, vulnerable girls who are put into her care. And so she is a villain.

I'd agree that both Sarah Reed and Miss Scatcherd are villains rather than anti-heroes. Several people have now mentioned Muriel Spark but nobody has yet actually named her ultimate anti-hero Miss Jean Brodie. Brodie is a hero to 'her girls', only one of whom is astute enough to see through her. The brilliance of the book lies in the way in which we, as readers, can understand why the girls are so infatuated with this most magnetic of characters, while gradually coming to realise that Brodie is not all she seems. The first time I read the book in my teens I was completely on the side of the girls and couldn't understand why that nasty Sandy and the school staff were so determined to bring down the kind of teacher I would have loved to have; it was only on subsequent (and more mature) readings that I could see the darker side of her personality.

21> Actually, I did mention Jean Brodie (8), but I was so very brief about it I don't blame you for missing it. ;-)

And I do agree with you that Miss Scatcherd's a villain, not an anti-heroine, as I noted 8. It's just that, once someone else had mentioned Sarah Reed, I couldn't resist putting a plug in for Miss Scatcherd, who's my positively most delicious villain, far more so than Mrs. Reed.

#22 So you did! I spent ages looking through the messages too because I was sure someone must have.

23> Actually, I love the movie even more than the book, not just for Maggie Smith but equally for Pam Franklin. I think one of the worst omissions in the history of Oscar is that Franklin was never even nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Sandy Stranger. (Goldie Hawn won that year for Cactus Flower.)

According to the Wikipedia article, Franklin's husband and son own Mystery Pier Books, a first editions and rare bookstore in West Hollywood.