Are there any strong female role models in "Realistic" fiction? The role of women in society is always being questioned, and thus women have struggled to find their place in a world that is mostly run by men. Literature that provides a window into the lives of women of different time periods should hold some truth in it, especially the literature of the "Realistic" era, but you have a hard time finding really "strong" women. In The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and The Awakening by Kate Chopin, I was hoping to find those strong women role models because they were written by women. I was mostly disappointed because the women I found in these works were more likely to be pampered, "Upper class," selfish examples of womanhood, who have the appearance of strength when things are going their way. When things get tough, these same women leave you questioning their intelligence. It is not the women who need to be changed, it is our society's perception of strength that needs to be changed.
In The House of Mirth, we are introduced to Lily Bart who is considered the "heroine" of this particular tale. Lily is thought to be an example of the strong, independent woman that feminism is looking to promote, because in sporadic acts of defiance, she rebels against the male dominated, but female enforced, rules of their time. In describing her, Lawrence Seldon sees Lily as "at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine" (Mirth 7). Lily has all of the markings of what we would now see as a successful woman because she not only beautiful, she is also described as "practical" (Mirth 39), "intelligent" (Mirth 40), and "prudent" (Mirth 41). Unfortunately this is a realistic tale and Lily makes some exceedingly poor choices that directly dispute those three words in her efforts to fit into that society.