Today is International Women’s Day which got me thinking about the female protagonists who have inspired me over the years.
Scarlett O’Hara has always been at the top of my list because, when the world she was raised to be part of is wiped out, and she is faced with either sinking into bitter poverty or squaring her shoulders and moving on, she moves on. (This may be partly because I was raised by woman whose answer to every problem is ‘suck it up and deal with it.’)
I once heard that Margaret Mitchell did not intend for Gone With the Wind to be a love story, but rather a story of what happens to people when their worlds collapse. Who comes through and who doesn’t? What do they have to do and what does it cost them? As Rhett says, ‘You didn’t plump yourself down on your male relatives and sob for the old days. You got out and hustled.’ Words to live by.
Miss Smilla is another independent fictional woman I return to every so often. I was nineteen when I first read Peter Høeg’s Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne and thirty-seven seemed so old and wise. Determined to discover the truth about what happened Esajas, the six-year-old boy who fell from the roof of her building, she launches her own investigation. She’s angry about her past and doesn’t keep sharp knives in her apartment because ‘on bad days it’s too easy to slit your throat in front of the bathroom mirror, so it’s good to have the extra security of needing to go downstairs to borrow a decent knife from the neighbours.’ She’s also incredibly intelligent, resourceful, and fiercely independent.
Finally Jane Eyre. Jane stands up for her feelings and never sees herself as less deserving than those around her, despite the world doing its best to convince her otherwise. Although she may be ‘poor, obscure, plain and little’ she’s strong and comfortable within herself. She would rather be alone than live a life that compromises her integrity, and while I would have gone to Italy with Mr Rochester, I see where she’s coming from.
One thing they all have in common is that neither Scarlett, Smilla nor Jane lead the lives society expects them to. That’s probably what inspires me the most.
Who are your favourite heroines?