Born to indulge in the page-turning excitement of a novel, I have been reading since I could physically pick up a book—as my mother phrases it. As I grew, my tastes expanded, going from the simplicities of a primary school curriculum to university level coursebooks.
Matilda By Roald Dahl
In my youth, I idolised the works of Dahl, with Matilda resonating with the young girl I believed myself to be. Able to occupy herself with endless stories, and the independence she represented. The bizarre but incredible concept of this five and a half year old girl walking herself to the daunting library, and taking in literary works crafted for adults, had the novelist within me admiring every part of this precocious girl’s life and her personality.
As I moved into navigating the teenage stage, I began to reach for classical works, partial to studying the intricate evils and darknesses of our society—with all that teenage angst building within me.
Lolita By Vladimir Nabokov
Reading Nabokov’s Lolita, and the twisted perspective, and disgusting actions of Humbert, had fuelled the fire of a feminist anger I didn’t quite grasp yet, that carried with me until my fresh adulthood. With the new insecurities of body image, sexuality and self-expression, this book completely compelled and disturbed me; with the troubles of steering teenage girlhood intensified by the newfound representation of women in literature.
Sexualised. Abused. Murdered. Words I couldn’t place and label to the young, fearless and chirpy females I had witnessed in prior tales, from Dickens to Rowling. Even in her young age, Lolita had been destroyed as a character by these words, and it hit me that literature was not always innocent and kind to us as a gender – it could be brutish and cruel.
Dracula By Bram Stoker
This book in itself is an enigma of lust, violence and supernaturality; reading this in secondary school was exciting and addicting—with every page introducing me to the gothic genre, and leading me into a dive into various works, from Shelley to Poe.
Two types of women presented themselves to me: Mina, the submissive, yet intelligent wife, and Lucy, the indulgent, sexual soon-to-be beast. To read a man portray a woman in two opposing, yet striking lights, reminded me that women were always perceived by men. Everything we did, everything we said, interpreted through their eyes, through their heads, and reiterated back through infamous pieces of literature. Taking this into account as I continued to read, I couldn’t force myself to ignore the way literature could impact us as women and society at large; it would determine the way we thought about others, and learnt about cultures and lives we could not live or encompass.
A Handmaid’s Tale By Margaret Atwood
Higher education had me reading and analysing this book, and it will always have an impact on my soul. With the way Atwood tells a harrowing tale of women controlled in a society that so closely mirrors our own evokes fear and terror from deep within me. From the part of myself that reacted so viscerally to the portrayal within Nabokov’s novel, the part that did not yet understand the world I lived in.
This book shaped my mind—not as it was growing, but as it was accepting. Accepting the reality for women within our society, the reality that women in literature would directly influence women I knew—such as myself. To see Offred fight for her freedom, in a country where I was free—yet not fully equal—made me appreciate the parts of my gender that had been accepted and the things I was able to do.
Literature obliges us to look within ourselves at our morals, our perspectives, and our interpretations of the world around us and these are just some of the many literary works that truly captures me, and shaped me to be the woman I am now.
Photo by Joyce Hankins on Unsplash