Searching for Heroines

[scribblerworks]

So, there I was, reviewing the visitor stats for my website, and I checked out the search strings that brought some people to the site.  It's kind of interesting to see how people get there (well, once you get past realizing that the high number of hits are spambots prowling about, alas).

Anyway, one thing that shows up consistantly are searches for "heroines"  - and "heroes" and "quest".

These are aspects of mythic patterns in stories, of course, which I wrote a whole book about (heh -- hype! hype!), www.scribblersguidetomyth.com.  But that book grew out of my studies into matters connected to heroes and heroines and quests.  Because of that, I thought it would be interesting to do some musing on the nature of heroines these days, particularly in modern fantasy works (whether set in pseudo-medieval worlds or in contemporary urban settings).  What's going on with them?  What has changed in how heroines function in stories these days?

So, first off, I went back and reread the column I wrote a long time ago about heroes and heroines.  It's posted on the website at http://www.scribblerworks.us/articles/Mythopoesis-Heroes.htm .  Admittedly the "writer's voice" in that column is much more scholarly and impersonal than the one I use these days.  But once I got past that, it did set me to thinking about some things.

The "traditional" role of heroines was that they were the objects of the quest, the princess to be won, or rescued, or freed.  She was certainly not the active character in the story, making the choices and moving the plot forward.  In the column, I described the function she served in the story as being the representative of the Essence of the tale.  The nature of the heroine served to represent the goals of the quest the hero pursued.  Dividing the Action and the Essence of the story into gender roles was a convenient shorthand for storytellers.  It didn't really reflect the capabilities of either sex when confronted with real quests.  But for a long time, because the social position of women was limited greatly, no one thought about that distinction.

These days however, women have the freedom to do almost everything that Society allows men to do.  I say "almost", because in America, women are prohibited from direct combat roles - mostly because in many ways, America is a very conservative society.  England, Israel, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Iceland -- (and that's just off the top of my head) all those countries have had women heads of state, long before America, the supposedly progressive nation, has even put forward a truly viable woman candidate for national leader.  But when it comes to stories, we do put women to the forefront.

The thing is, what we have now are "female heroes", not "heroines".  We have female characters who are taking the principal role of action, driving the story forward.  But forward to what?  What is it these days that serves as the embodiment of the goal of the story's quest?  The figure that personifies the socialization of the Hero at the end of the quest?  Because we do not really cast male characters into that somewhat objectified role.  We still shy away from putting male characters into the position of being rescued, freed, won for marriage and, in a word, inactive in the plot.  There are very few male counterparts to Sleeping Beauty.  Perhaps the Prince Charming of many Cinderella versions does serve that purpose, but even in that story, he does have to go out and find the owner of the magical footware.

Now, don't mistake me.  I do think it a good thing that modern stories allow female characters to be more active, to be, in fact, the hero of the story. I've always liked stories with strong female characters.  But I've been wondering what we're losing on the symbolic level by transforming the Figure of Essence into the Figure of Action.

I don't have any answers on this.  The modern sensibilities would certainly sneer at the immobile traditional fairy tale princess who only exists to be won.  Quite rightly, from the social perspective.  But I don't know that we've found a substitute for the Figure of Essence in stories yet.

(Yes, I guess I've just now coined two new story terms: Figure of Action and Figure of Essence. I wonder if they'll be useful?)