Female Roles in Historical Fiction--How to Make Them Feel Real and Avoid Stereotypes
Have you ever read an historical fiction work where the female character just didn't "feel" right? Maybe she seemed like a stereotypical meek or spoiled cutout of a Southern belle? Or maybe she was too modern and forward? I thought for this post I would address something that I've noticed some writers of historical fiction--especially male authors--tend to struggle with, and that is of female characters in historical settings.
(Image below: North and South, 1985 Warner Bros.)
1. What is her background? Is she from a wealthy family? Is she the daughter of sharecroppers who has to get her hands dirty in the fields? Does she live in a city or in the backwoods of Appalachia? This is an important key in deciding what shapes the attitude and decorum of your character. This background needs to be researched and understood. For example: a Southern plantation owner's daughter might seem an easy figure to understand, but not truly when we realize a lot of what we have been told are cliches from the media. Most of these women had a "public" face and one that was "private." (Just like many of us today.) When entertaining guests, she would appear in her more fashion forward clothing and watch her manners. (Just like if you are hosting a dinner party today, you would not greet guests in jeans and t-shirt.) Unfortunately, this seems to be what is portrayed 90% of the time. In reality, the women on a plantation held a huge burden of work from book keeping, to tending a garden, to overseeing washing, mending, butchering of livestock, poultry, cooking, etc. There was one account I read where a woman bemoaned in her diary that her husband brought by guests and happened upon her while she was out back, sleeves rolled up, helping some slaves make lye soap. She quickly ran inside, changed clothes, and when she saw the guests again, met them as if she had never seen them before. As if the woman sweating and working out back had been a different person. Clearly, even if there were servants, a plantation was in essence an entire town in itself and the owners could be likened to a mayor, and husband and wife usually shared the duty. A simpering, weak, and silly person would not handle such a position well. This is not to say such women did not exist. I believe all of us have run across the "air head" or "mean girl" who due to good looks married a wealthy businessman and such women existed back then as well.
2. What are her core beliefs? Is she religious? What faith does she prescribe to? This can have a large effect on a character. For example, Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women was part of a family that was deeply involved in the Transcendentalist movement. These individuals flirted with the ideas of communes, temperance, universal suffrage, and vegetarianism. This movement had an effect on the character of Jo March and was even revealed openly in the story. A good idea is to try to find some diaries or journals of women from the time and place your character is from and get a feel for what was important to those women. When I wrote about Grace Dinsmoor in my first book, I made her a little more forward thinking for her time because she was from a fairly up and coming town in New Hampshire. New Hampshire during the 1860's was the only state in the Union that allowed people of color and in some locales, women to vote. (Though in local elections, not national.) The temperance movement was also forefront in the news. As a result, Grace, whose family was connected to a former governor of the state, would be more likely to have these ideas, which would be considered fairly radical for that time.
Recently, after reading one particular female character in the Sharpe's books, (a series which in the last year I've become addicted to), and another book where the female lead was far too brash for her era and a father figure seemed completely nonplussed by her actions, it made me contemplate the female figures in my own novels. It made me decide this was a good subject to cover.
I have found it enjoyable to explore portraying different types of women in another era: Grace, a bookish intellect; Yumi, who tries to maneuver and survive the stricter confines of Tokugawa society; emotionally damaged Coral, who thought prostitution was an escape to independence, and in doing so lost the ability to love; and Molly, a dreamer who is forced to take on the role of a strong woman. Behind all them are research. Research, and more research. And usually one or more real historical women who helped guide me in their creation. As I explain some of the steps I take to creating my female characters, I am going to focus mainly on Victorian era women as that is my expertise. However, there are some rules to follow that can be used for all time periods. Let us start with those.
When looking at creating a fictional female character in a historical setting, there are some questions you must first ask yourself and items to consider:
1. What is her background? Is she from a wealthy family? Is she the daughter of sharecroppers who has to get her hands dirty in the fields? Does she live in a city or in the backwoods of Appalachia? This is an important key in deciding what shapes the attitude and decorum of your character. This background needs to be researched and understood. For example: a Southern plantation owner's daughter might seem an easy figure to understand, but not truly when we realize a lot of what we have been told are cliches from the media. Most of these women had a "public" face and one that was "private." (Just like many of us today.) When entertaining guests, she would appear in her more fashion forward clothing and watch her manners. (Just like if you are hosting a dinner party today, you would not greet guests in jeans and t-shirt.) Unfortunately, this seems to be what is portrayed 90% of the time. In reality, the women on a plantation held a huge burden of work from book keeping, to tending a garden, to overseeing washing, mending, butchering of livestock, poultry, cooking, etc. There was one account I read where a woman bemoaned in her diary that her husband brought by guests and happened upon her while she was out back, sleeves rolled up, helping some slaves make lye soap. She quickly ran inside, changed clothes, and when she saw the guests again, met them as if she had never seen them before. As if the woman sweating and working out back had been a different person. Clearly, even if there were servants, a plantation was in essence an entire town in itself and the owners could be likened to a mayor, and husband and wife usually shared the duty. A simpering, weak, and silly person would not handle such a position well. This is not to say such women did not exist. I believe all of us have run across the "air head" or "mean girl" who due to good looks married a wealthy businessman and such women existed back then as well.
Regardless of a woman's character, and what type of person she chose to be, there was an ideal that most women would try to be, some taking the challenge to be the ideal more seriously than others. What is that ideal? It differed due to time and place, and research is important to find it. I will give a brief example here: Recently, I saw an image of a woman's gravestone in Natchez, MS and the inscription written on it by her family was very revealing of what a perfect woman and wife was at the time of her death in 1858:
"Her character was strongly marked by rare and decisive virtues: a clear and vigorous intellect: united to much simplicity: firm, yet gentle: just, yet charitable: honest without pretense: generous without prodigality: independent without offense: religious without bigotry: self reliant, yet humble: dignified, yet affable: a deep feeling of true piety, coloured all her acts: dying as she had lived, without ever having an enemy."
2. What are her core beliefs? Is she religious? What faith does she prescribe to? This can have a large effect on a character. For example, Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women was part of a family that was deeply involved in the Transcendentalist movement. These individuals flirted with the ideas of communes, temperance, universal suffrage, and vegetarianism. This movement had an effect on the character of Jo March and was even revealed openly in the story. A good idea is to try to find some diaries or journals of women from the time and place your character is from and get a feel for what was important to those women. When I wrote about Grace Dinsmoor in my first book, I made her a little more forward thinking for her time because she was from a fairly up and coming town in New Hampshire. New Hampshire during the 1860's was the only state in the Union that allowed people of color and in some locales, women to vote. (Though in local elections, not national.) The temperance movement was also forefront in the news. As a result, Grace, whose family was connected to a former governor of the state, would be more likely to have these ideas, which would be considered fairly radical for that time.
3. What is her education? Again, you will need to do some research. It is safe to say that by the 19th century, nearly 100% of those in the upper classes were literate. Most girls of middle to upper class were sent to school. Some were even beginning to enter universities. Several women were doctors during the War Between the States, namely Mary Walker and Oriana Moon. (Oriana, who grew up on a plantation in Virginia, was one of seven children and her father sent all of his children on to higher education. Her sister, Lottie, had the gumption to become a spy for the Confederacy.) In France, (and everyone wanted to copy France culturally during the mid-19th century), Napoleon III forced universities to accept women as students. Poorer women still tended to have some education in the 19th century, and pretty safe to say after the Reformation, as families thought it important all family members be able to read the Bible. Also, women were most often the ones to be in charge of teaching the children.
(Pictured: Dr. Oriana Moon with her husband, Dr. Andrews. They met in a hospital while both tending to wounded soldiers during the War Between the States.)
4. Extenuating Circumstances. Of course if you are writing, and doing it well, you're putting your characters through some sort of delightfully uncomfortable or cruel trials. Whatever those might be are going to force your female characters to step out of their normal boundaries. When this happens, however, the characters should show some sort of trepidation or there should be acknowledgement from other characters that she is not in a typical role. For instance, when I wrote the Japanese character, Yumi, I didn't just bestow her with warrior abilities because she wanted them. I researched and found instances of women in the Tokugawa era who were warriors and then read why and how they got to be in this atypical role. This made me able to create a proper backstory to explain her situation, to let the reader know she was not normal. And while she had learned some basic skills fighting alongside her brother, she still finds herself being pulled back to more female roles by society and later by Bertram, who by influences of society upon him, doesn't believe any woman should bother with weapons other than for self defense. (Hence why he is more than ready to teach Molly how to shoot and give her a revolver, but becomes infuriated when he finds out Yumi wants to train and fight with the Choshu militia he's been charged with training.) Ultimately, one thing to consider when creating a strong female character, is despite how independent a woman may feel, I believe there is always a desire to belong and be loved. That character is going to give in, at least a little, and follow some of society's norms to have those things. (If she doesn't want them, then she's an odd ball that your audience will be less likely to empathize with.)
I hope this brief explanation helps anyone wishing to create historically accurate female characters and at the same time explains some of the women I write about.
~S. H. Ford
(All black and white pen drawings (c) 2017 S. H. Ford for the Grayback series. Please do not use without permission.)
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