Female protagonists from classics of literature to bodice busting trash

Fatema Tariq
Nov 6 · 3 min read

Female protagonists of a certain type of novel. Some of these are classics, others not so much.

After being jilted at the altar you vow to spend your remaining years in your wedding dress surrounded by rotting wedding cake and the debris of your (almost) big day.

In your spare time you herd geese, clean out pig pens at your father's languishing homestead or saw off gangrenous limbs on the front line. Occasionally you dress up as a man and beat your various suitors at whist.

You are surrounded by idiots who adore you despite the fact that you are patently a bitch, when you run out of wardrobe options, you rock your drawing room curtains like a boss.

You are fluent in several languages in spite of never having been abroad or possibly even to school.

You blush every ten seconds and can be relied on to conveniently faint at least once a week. You have been known to have "improper" thoughts.

Despite having survived famines, war, witch hunts and a small pox epidemic. Your immaculate feminine frame betrays no instance of ever having been marred by so much as a speck of dust.

You are incredibly beautiful and men and women alike swoon at your feet but you are completely unaware of your effect on those around you.
You may or may not have a bosom friend, she is either slightly plump or is also ravishingly beautiful with some discreet deformity like a club foot, a poor husband or a moustache.After all you're the heroine.

You are innocence incarnate but you will inevitably jump into bed with that flashing eyed scoundrel of a duke at the very first opportunity.

You are a mousy governess in love with a man who is possibly a necrophiliac.

All the men you know can be neatly divided into three categories: elderly, lecherous bags of suet who aspire to your impoverished hand in marriage , notorious rakes with smoldering eyes, ravenous smiles and colossal fortunes who are enamored of your pristine (but short lived) virtue or middle aged exceedingly staid vicar types who have condescended to overlook your lack of dowry and chosen instead to focus on your generous (oft-heaving) bosoms.

You are the lone voice of sanity in a family of buffoons.

You're described as starry eyed and often ramble on to yourself about inanities. Gentlemen claim to find it utterly charming.

At eighteen you are considered an aged spinster by your despairing family. Due to your lack of marital prospects you are granted permission to travel to the new world with a crone of twenty and two years as your chaperone. En route you abandon your stays and bonnet, get a tan, and discover love/lust with a ripped Italian count. You are labeled an original. Everyone now wants to be you.

You have literary aspirations but are doomed to life as either a nurse, a governess or a nun.

You have a brother who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever who will connive to sell you into domestic servitude on the mere promise of an army.

You're a privileged snob with a penchant for match making.

You are an orphan of humble descent and dubious morals but are acclaimed as the toast of Paris.

You are an untamed hellion, who arm wrestles grown men at her local pub, fearlessly rides bare back for leagues on end and saves the life of a passing duke/earl/Prince every Sunday morning before galloping off to church. You have a deeply spiritual side, sapphire blue eyes and ringlets of spun gold.

You are a kitchen skivvy of unknown parentage but you have a genteel air which cannot be taught and the distinctive eyebrows/nose/jawline/big toe of an acclaimed house of nobles.

I'm sure I missed a few. You guys are welcome to contribute.

    Fatema Tariq

    Written by

    Mom, keeper of the choco pops, marketing research associate, reluctantly proud owner of two boys and a man.

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