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Woman
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When a person is asked to describe typical features of character
of a real woman he or she would probably say that a real woman
should be kind, gentle, caring, charming, strong and etc.
It is possible to continue the list of woman’s important
features until the end of essay. However, the main goal of
this paper is to describe three women depicted by the prominent
writers, such as Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
and Henrik Ibsen. Their works, which are going to be analyzed,
are “Simple Heart” (or “Simple Soul”),
“Notes from Underground” and “Hedda Gabler”.
All three pieces of literature have women as the main characters,
whose destinies and chacter traits are being described by
the authors.
The main character of “Simple Heart” is Felicite,
whose main trait is wiliness and great desire to love. This
woman is unable to live without love, and for this reason
she finds a creature that she loves and cares for. The reason
for saying creature is because at some point of her life Felicite
love a parrot. When she was eighteen she had unsuccessful
love affair with young man Theodore, who chose to get married
with a rich lady rather than poor kind-hearted orphan Felicite.
To live normally the girl has to love somebody, that’s
why she starts to feel love for her mistress and mistress’s
children, her nephew Victor, the old man that she took care
of, and at last her parrot Loulou. Working as a servant Felicite
does not possess any special qualities, besides that she is
loving and caring. However, it is also possible to describe
this woman as strong, because even when she lost people she
loved she was able to overcome the pain, and not only to continue
love, but also to find new person or non-person to love. The
author himself described Felicite to be “as tender as
fresh bread”. Felicite’s great need for love can
be explained with the lack of love she experienced in childhood,
due to the early death of her parents. Felicity didn’t
notice when people were exploiting her, and thus continued
to take care of them. Was she happy? She probably wasn’t,
or maybe she was but in her own way, which remains unclear
to the readers.
The next woman to be described will be Liza from Dostoevsky’s
“Notes from Underground”. This book concentrates
on the life of the Underground man and his relationship with
female prostitute Liza. Liza is a girl of 20 years old, who
left her home town Riga to continue living in St. Petersburg.
She tries to earn money, but it is in vain, because she already
owes money to the mistress of the brothel where she works.
Though prostitutes are always considered to be disgraceful,
dirty and wretched, possessing no good personal traits, Dostoevsky
depicts Liza as loyal and loving lady, with great ability
to forgive people. First encounter of Liza with the Underground
man happens in the brothel where she works. The girl appears
to be very ingenuous, as she believes that the Underground
man has some feelings towards her. However, the only feeling
that the Underground man possesses while saying about his
“high feelings” is the desire to have sexual relationship
with the girl. Being naive the girl gives him what he wants
and continues to love him. Her love helps her to forgive the
abusive things that the Underground man said to her and come
to his house. Though the Underground man insults her again,
she ingeniously forgives him and stays for the night at his
house. The reason for which she stayed was her love towards
the Underground man rather than desire to earn some money.
However, the Underground man is too cruel to understand it,
and in order to get rid of Liza he gives her money for the
services she rendered to him and makes her live with the desire
not to come back. Thus, it is possible to say that the main
trait of Liza is her great ability to forgive, which makes
her so sensitive and kind despite of her profession.
Having spoken about Felicite and Liza, it is necessary to
describe the next woman named Hedda Gabler, who is the main
character of the same name play by Henrik Ibsen. Hedda Gabler
is a contradictory character. She is intelligent and charming,
romantic and witty, sometimes cruel and possessing a very
strong character. From my point of view, Hedda Gabler is the
most realistic in comparison with Felicite and Liza. Henrik
Ibsen depicted Hedda to be energetic and lively. It is possible
to say that she is a noticeable character, who influences
the lives of other people. This never happened to Felicite
and Liza, who lived their lives quietly not really bothering
anyone. Hedda’s character is bright and powerful, which
makes her look like a real person rather than some poor and
weak creature existing in the world but not living. "I
want to have the power to shape a human being's destiny"
[3], said Hedda to Eilert. Possessing a strong character Hedda
still feels despair, which is shown to people by her constant
anger and animosity, which people cannot understand. But she
doesn’t suffer quietly. She tries to be happy, and when
she doesn’t find the way out she shoots herself, not
being afraid to be punished by God. I would probably like
Hedda Gabler more if she didn’t commit suicide, but
it wouldn’t have been a drama then.
Bibliography
1. Dostoevsky, Fyodor “Notes from Underground”.
2. Flaubert, Gustave “Simple Heart”.
3. Ibsen, Henrik “Hedda Gabler”.
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