Looking back at great literary works it seems that all unlikeable female characters can be, in one way or another, linked back to the very first one: Eve of the bible. In the book of Genesis, and in Milton’s 17th century remake Paradise Lost, the world is created perfectly by God and is disrupted by the jealous and vindictive Satan, who preys upon Eve when realising her to be the weak link. She is easily seduced, unintelligent, disloyal, greedy and vain; all of which cause the fall of man and fabricate the neverending female condition.
Every ‘unlikeable’ female character henceforth seems to be a mimic of Eve. Matilda in The Monk successfully deceives and seduces a highly respected religious man, as Eve does to Adam; Catherine in Wuthering Heights is untamed and wild, taking after Eve’s disobedience from God; Julia in The Duchess of Malfi has a fickle nature and is weak to the whims of men, as Satan proves; Bertha in Jane Eyre is simply put, “the madwoman.”
More broadly in pop culture, the same can be said. The iconic figure of Regina George in Mean Girls resembles Eve the seductress, whilst Skyler in Breaking Bad was labelled a bully by the media when sharing Eve’s unwillingness to be subservient to the men in her life. Since the 2nd century, Eve has been used as a classic example for sexism to be justified; the ‘sinful qualities’ she possesses are criticised and thus connoted with the female sex.
The question I want to pose is, should we finally redeem her?
As many critics have noted, Eve’s first and most significant sin is pride. She believes that through taking a bite of the fruit from the tree of good and evil, she will supersede her original place through gaining God’s knowledge. As students, we hold knowledge in high esteem. Rather than blaming Eve for wanting more, we should recognise her craving as something we all share. We all strive for knowledge, wisdom and experience, believing that it will help us develop and thrive in society. Unfortunately, we look at women in literature and believe that when they are following in Eve’s footsteps (i.e. having autonomy and a strong will), they are doing something wrong and distasteful.
Let us instead see Eve as an independent woman, one who wishes to forge her own destiny. Let us try and sympathise, recognising that these so-called unlikeable women are more than what makes them unlikeable. A good place to start is Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, a retelling of Bertha from Jane Eyre where her erratic behaviour is instead understood as a response to being rejected and abandoned.
It is in our power to reshape this narrative; to instead critically evaluate how and why we judge the unlikeable female character we see so often in the media.
“Jan Brueghel & Peter Paul Rubens – The Garden of Eden [c.1615]” by Gandalf’s Gallery is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0