Five Most Memorable Literary Heroines2/25/2023 What do we remember most about a novel? What keeps us coming for Book 2, for all the sequels to come; what propels us to read an entire series in a week? For me, it’s emotional connection. What connects us to books are their characters- their personalities, their relationships, and their charisma. In today’s article I’d like to explore some of the most memorable literary heroines. They run the gamut of personality, from irreverent to introverted, and I hope that you will love each of them as much as I do. #1: Merricat from We Have Always Lived In The Castle, by Shirley Jackson. Oh, has there ever been a narrator as compelling as Merricat? Just take a look at her opening lines: “My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.” #2: Cassandra Mortmain from I Capture The Castle, by Dodie Smith. Another castle girl! Cassandra is bright, blithe, wonderfully sincere. Her struggles are genuinely affecting, and there’s hardly anything so charming as her slow, magic-tinged coming-of-age in rural England. “I shall have to get off the draining-board—Topaz wants the tea-cozy and our dog, Heloise, has come in and discovered I have borrowed her blanket. She is a bull-terrier, snowy white except where her fondant-pink skin shows through her short hair. All right, Heloise darling, you shall have your blanket. She gazes at me with love, reproach, confidence and humor- how can she express so much just with two rather small slanting eyes? I think it worthy of note that I never felt happier in my life- despite sorrow for Father, pity for Rose, embarrassment about Stephen’s poetry and no justification for hope as regards our family’s general outlook. Perhaps it is because I have satisfied my creative urge; or it may be due to the thought of eggs for tea.” #3: Gideon Nav from Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. If you’ve been reading YA fiction recently, chances are you’ve come across the inimitable flair of Gideon Nav already, but on the off chance you haven’t, allow me to introduce you. She’s buff as hell, cheerfully blasphemous, and disarmingly funny. “Gideon looked down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and saw the blood in her saliva and saw her sword; and she loved her sword so much she could frigging marry it.” #4: Galadriel Higgins from A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik. She’s feisty, powerful, and, like Gideon, laugh-out-loud funny. If occasionally she seems a bit self-involved - she came across that way to me, in parts - stick with it! The book is worth it. “I don't have a very good idea of how people behave with their friends normally because I've never had one before. But, on the bright side, Orion hadn't either, so he didn't know any more than I did. So for lack of a better idea, we just went on being rude to each other, which was easy enough for me and a refreshing and new experience for him, in both directions.” #5: Smilla Jaspersen from Smilla’s Sense of Snow, by Peter Høeg. Smilla is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite heroines. She can be mean just as she’s unaccountably elegant; she can be petty just as she can be graceful. She’s intelligent, quick, and unapologetic about any of her qualities- her solitude, her sharp tongue, or her qualmlessness. “I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It's the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.” And: “Falling in love has been greatly overrated. Falling in love consists of 45 percent fear of not being accepted, 45 percent manic hope that this time the fear will be put to shame and a modest 10 percent frail awareness of the possibility of love. I don't fall in love any more. Just like I don't get the mumps.” Naomi Gageis a sophomore in high school in Los Angeles. In her spare time, she reads, writes, and cooks. You won’t find her on social media, but if you see her in the street, feel free to say hello.
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