How Has the Representation of Women in Fantasy Changed Over Time?
The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien, 2005), published 1954, Mythago Wood (Holdstock, 2014), published 1984, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Gaiman, 2013), and The Starless Sea (Morgenstern, 2019) are the texts I am using to examine the representation of women in fantasy fiction. Good representation would include complex, multifaceted characters who do not fall into traditional roles or solely function to serve a male character. With male protagonists central to our cultural understanding of the genre, it may be hard to find positive, nuanced representations of women in fantasy fiction.
Initially, it appears that all these texts sideline women to traditional roles as mothers, wives, and healers. In The Lord of the Rings, there are few female characters compared to the abundance of men. Arwen is introduced as, ‘a lady fair to look upon [...] Arwen, daughter of Elrond’ (p. 227). Though in a position of power, she is something to look at and is introduced in relation to her father. She ‘does nothing for the story except marry Aragorn’ (Robinson, 2016, par. 7), acting as a prize to be won. While Galadriel is a mythic figure, she is also introduced in conjunction with a man, ‘Lord Celeborn and Galadriel the Lady of Lorien’ (p. 353). She is described in relation to masculinity, ‘very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and [...] beautiful’ (p. 354), ‘her voice was clear and musical, but deeper than woman’s wont’ (p. 355). Her beauty manifests as ‘images of women’ rather than ‘images for women’ (Hollows, 2000, p. 38), pushing women readers into the male position to ‘engage with the narrative’ (Moody, 2006, p. 176) through the eyes of Frodo. Galadriel is also a prophet, which is a feminine role exemplified by the mythic figure Cassandra who was cursed so that ‘no trust should be placed in her predictions’ (Harvey, 1975, p. 148), which links to the position of women in society, ignored.
The Lord of the Rings ends with Sam returning to his wife and children, ‘Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap’ (p. 1031). This closing passage cements the idea of traditional roles of women staying home, cooking, and raising children while men fight and adventure. This is reflected in the race of the Ents and Entwives, ‘the Entwives made gardens to live in. But we Ents went on wandering’ (p. 476). Lobelia, Bilbo’s cousin, is another insignificant character who is mainly referred to when paired with her husband. Lobelia is rude, greedy, and ‘disliked Bilbo and detested Frodo’ (p. 28). By the end of the book, she has been held captive by her husband and dies a year later, providing an inheritance for Frodo. The depiction of women in The Lord of the Rings has been hotly debated as it is seen as the definitive fantasy text of the 20th century.
In Mythago Wood, the only significant female character is Guiwenneth. She is an object of desire for Stephen, ‘I wanted her [...] the girl from the wildwood who had obsessed my brother’ (p. 77) and Christopher, ‘at last I have the one thing I have sought [...] I shall have her, I shall use her’ (p. 172). The main conflict of the second half of the novel is derived from Christopher stealing her for himself, ‘I claim her’ (p. 176). She is a product of magic, a mythago, created from the minds of the male characters. She is in need of saving, ‘my life could not continue until she was safe again’ (p. 185).
In The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the female characters can be categorised as mothers, housekeepers, or children. The Hepstocks tend the farm without men, who ‘went out into the world’ (p. 220) They take on typically feminine activities, such as cooking and sewing, even though they are supernatural beings, ‘we’ll wash your clothes, and dry them for you, and mend that dressing gown’ (p. 122). Ursula’s femininity is heightened, with ‘pale lipstick’ (p. 70) and her ‘grey and pink dress’ (p. 75), ‘the woman was very pretty [...] she seemed tall, even for an adult’ (p. 70). She is also disturbing, her eyes are compared to ‘holes rotted in canvas’ (p.75).
In The Starless Sea, there are a number of notable female characters that are defined by their relationships with men. One of these is Mirabel, the reincarnated form of the girl from the first chapter. While the Keeper is immortal, she is killed for assisting his escape, ‘they executed her in my place’ (p. 334), making her a victim. The villainous Allegra aligns with the role of mother, ‘the closest thing to a mother [Dorian] ever had’ (p. 339). Eleanor is also a mother and Simon is searching for her through time, akin to Stephen’s quest in Mythago Wood. W hile Zachary discovers a fantasy world, the only female character who is not a mother or partner to a man, Kat, is left behind, ‘I think Z’s dead’ (p. 433). Female characters in fantasy novels seem to be trapped in worlds where they cannot be defined by themselves, but rather their relation to men and domesticity.
While these characters fit into traditionally feminine roles, there are also characters in these texts who defy conventions. In The Lord of the Rings, Éowyn is a female warrior who fights back against the idea that she should stay at home, ‘am I not [...] a shieldmaiden and not a dry-nurse? [...] May I not spend my life as I will?’ (p. 784). She is a complex character who fights in battle, though the impact of her defiance is lessened by her infatuation with Aragorn, adoption of the role of healer, and marriage to Faramir. Her story implies she is incomplete without a husband (Griffin, 2015, p. 223). This mirrors Arwen’s position, as she chooses Aragorn over going to the Grey Havens. However, Éowyn ‘fulfils Tolkein’s theme of peace, preservation, and cultural memory’ (Hatcher, 2007, pg. 44), as she takes the role of a healer after defeating the enemy. The theme of restoration is exemplified by the chapter ‘The Scouring of the Shire’, after purging the shire of outside corruption, Sam says ‘I shan’t call it the end [of the war], till we’ve cleared up the mess [...] and that’ll take a lot of time and work’ (p. 1020). While Samwise embodies this theme as the gardener and member of the fellowship, Éowyn aligns with it as a side character. Shelob, a villainous spider woman, is another defiant character who ‘served none but herself’ (p. 723), unwilling to submit to any man. She is not exempt from the traditional role of mother or villain. Sam thinks that she kills Frodo, which makes him wounding her a heroic act.
In Mythago Wood, Guiwenneth is not just the love interest and damsel in distress, she is also a fierce warrior. At the start of the novel she is seen as a threat, ‘she had a spear, and the cold metal blade was against my throat’ (p. 78). Afterwards, Stephen still remarks about her ‘power’ (p. 93) and ‘strength’ (p. 123), ‘she was tall, almost as tall as me’ (p. 93). Her role as a warrior is neglected when Stephen, who is not a trained fighter, sets it upon himself to rescue her. Guiwenneth does fight back against Christian, though mortally wounded, while Stephen accidentally kills him by throwing a metal leaf. Somehow, she exists as both a childlike victim and a threatening warrior, as she ‘betrayed the hardness of the warrior in her by almost shrieking with delight’ (p. 144), an object to desire, and a cook for the men. This shows a complex female character, though not consistently defiant of conventionality. There is another female character, Anne Hayden, the daughter of Edward Wynne-Jones, described as ‘uncomfortable and solemn’ (p. 107). She provides information that allows Stephen to venture deeper into the woods and attempt to save Guiwenneth. However, she is confined to one scene and defined by her relationships to her father, ex-husband and boyfriend.
In Ocean at the End of the Lane, most characters are women, though fitting into conventionally feminine roles. Lettie sacrifices herself for the protagonist, even though he does not remember that she existed, ‘perhaps I just wanted to know more about the girl who had saved my life’ (p. 220). Ursula Monkton is the villain of the story, a powerful, supernatural entity acting as housekeeper, cook, and seductress, ‘I was scared by what it meant that my father was kissing the neck of Ursula Monkton’ (p. 104). She holds complexity, seeming conformist to some characters while defying nature. Though Ginnie and Old Mrs Hepstock are mothers, it is the female family that is important. Ginnie explains that Hepstock women do not ‘have a daddy’ (p. 220). In this novel, it seems that being supernatural, immortal, ageless beings is not enough to rid themselves of societal expectations of womanhood, though they are allowed complexity and narrative focus.
In The Starless Sea, women also represent good and evil as multi-faceted characters. Mirabel is a mystery, a woman who has lived many lives. It is a picture of her at a party that leads Zachary to the Starless Sea, and she painted the door he found as a child. She acts as a guide and a danger, ‘she is not your friend [...] if she left you, she meant to do so’ (p. 379). She has an active role in rescuing the pirate, ‘her hand hovers above the key [...] this is her decision and she needs no outside assistance in making it […] the girl gifts the pirate his freedom’ (p. 104-105). These qualities make her a complex woman in fantasy fiction. Allegra, the motherly villain, is not entirely evil as she has understandable motivations of protection, ‘I have seen where this will lead and I will not let it happen’ (p. 313). Even Kat, though left behind, is welcomed into the harbour of the Starless Sea by the end of the novel, ‘the door is locked but it has a keyhole and hey, I have a key’ (p. 490), reflecting Zachary’s position at the start of the book. Kat is romantically involved with women and has an interest in video games and knitting, ‘Kat, one of the few undergrads from his department who has moved from acquaintance to almost-friend, [...] runs a video-game-themed cooking blog’ (p. 29). She is ‘clever and determined and passionate’ (p. 439), a multifaceted character who conforms to some but not all of societies expectations for women.
Complex female characters who are not defined by their relation to male characters seem more prevalent in modern fantasy fiction. The shift suggests that female representation in fantasy is improving. However, female characters are central to the plot of classical fantasy such as C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia ( 1977), p ublished 1950-1956, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ( 1978a), published 1865, and Through the Looking-glass ( 1978b), published 1871, and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz ( 2014), published 1900. These characters are both protagonists and villains, such as Lucy and the White Witch in Narnia, Alice and the Queen of Hearts in the Alice b ooks, and Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. T his shows that there were depictions of complex women in fantasy before The Lord of the Rings. However, these texts are examples of children’s literature and these characters are either chastised young girls or villainous older women, with most other characters being male. This means that the trend concerns complex female characters in adult fantasy fiction.
However, there are outliers in the trend. The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey is a science fantasy series that began in the 1960s. The original trilogy features a female protagonist, Lessa, saving the world. Though she conforms to societies expectations by becoming a wife and mother, she is also focussed on her position within the flight of the dragons, though this is determined by gender. Having a female protagonist to a successful fantasy series in the 1960s defies the pattern that I have identified. In Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword ( 1982), a girl, Harry, saves her homeland from invasion after being kidnapped by the King and forced to become one of his riders. Though her life is ruled by her relationships to men, she is the hero, becoming a King’s rider, which is a masculine role within society. These fantasy stories about women and girls fighting despite society working against them reflect the fight for women’s rights during the second wave of feminism during the 1960s and 70s (Brittanica, 2021, par. 1). These novels are outliers to the shift I have identified in the fantasy fiction of the past, which favoured male characters and embraced the domestication and villainisation of women. Notably, these novels (and The Starless Sea) are written by women. This suggests that despite the lack of complex central female characters in the most popular fantasy fiction, these characters have always existed in the hands of women writers.
Though, as The Starless Sea exemplifies, they do not always write female protagonists. However, the protagonist, Zachary, is an unconventional example of masculinity for a mainstream fantasy novel, as he is both gay and a person of colour. In this way, Morgenstern fights against the heteronormative conventions of the genre. Rather than having a damsel in distress as in Mythago Wood, Mirabel says on several occasions that they need to ‘go and rescue [Dorian]’ (p. 144) and ‘we have to rescue Ezra’s boyfriend because [...] that’s what we do’ (p. 333). Other than Dorian and the Keeper, Zachary is surrounded by women, which lends itself to a more complex view of masculinity. Though the idea of an unconventional hero is key to most genre texts, such as Frodo, they are still conventionally white, straight, and cisgender. As Virginia Woolf’s Orlando ( 2014), published 1928, exemplifies through the historical fantasy setting is that gender can be a complex and changing thing. This has also been touched upon by recent children’s fantasy fiction such as the graphic novel Mooncakes (Walker and Xu, 2019) and the Arthurian retelling Once and Future ( Capetta and McCarthy, 2019), which include characters outside of the gender binary.
It seems that in modern fantasy fiction, female characters are allowed to grow and change the way male characters have been allowed to since the birth of the genre. No female character in The Lord of the Rings goes through significant change during the novel, other than Lobelia, who is shrewish and insignificant. However, as I have mentioned, there is only a clear progression towards more central, complex female characters in fantasy texts when overlooking the women writers of the 1960s and 70s. The trend towards more nuanced female characters in fantasy fiction over time links to how more women and diverse voices are being published as feminist ideologies have become more accepted. Now, ‘women are [...] well represented at the highest levels of genre publishing, [...] in both the UK and the US’ (McKenna, 2017, par. 4). Additionally, Crisp states that ‘every genre publisher in the UK has female commissioning editors’ (2017, par. 3). She also identified that out of the submissions that Tor Books receives, women submitted 33% of historical or epic fantasy manuscripts (akin to The Lord of the Rings), while 68% of young adult submissions were by women (Crisp, 2017, par. 5). This reflects the lack of nuanced female characters in some areas while there has been more in children’s literature, such as the successful Hunger Games books where Katniss was a strong-willed, complex woman who defeated evil forces. People are more aware of the need for complex female characters in various genres and more male authors and being held accountable for their depictions of women. When ‘a departure from reality is inherent in the name of the genre’ (Robinson, 2016, par. 41), it is interesting that so many male writers have pushed traditional roles onto the few female fantasy characters they have.
Female characters now exist with complexity in modern fantasy fiction, though these characters have always existed in the hands of female fantasy writers. The way society has overlooked these contributions to literature perpetuates the prevalence of male-dominated narratives while young girls occupy children’s fantasy fiction. Overall, there are now more richly complex female characters in fantasy fiction by all authors and more diverse authors are having the opportunity to publish.
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