No shortage of intellectual heroines around here

Tania Kindersley's blog on The Guardian website has a post that we couldn't disagree more with. The title and description are:

Where are the intellectual heroines?
You would think that literature would provide plenty of brilliant female characters. But you should think again.

Indeed you would think that people wouldn't write columns about books they've only ever read for school, if they have ever read them.

When I am not re-reading Mrs Dalloway or thinking deep thoughts about the human condition, here is what I secretly like to do: watch a cheesy old film called The Electric Horseman.

We suppose this is tongue-in-cheek, but it sounds nothing short of pretentious.

For one horrible moment I couldn't even think of any overtly clever heroines. Mousily good little Jane Eyre; bonkers Cathy Earnshaw; beautiful but vapid Daisy Buchanan; wilful and selfish Bathsheba Everdine: not exactly a list of academic brilliance.

There are so many wrong things in this sentence that we could write a whole essay on it. We'll briefly focus on Jane Eyre and Cathy Earnshaw, which is in accordance with the topic of this blog. Jane Eyre not only not clever but also mousily good? Because being a governess was a job anyone could do. Because her perception, her knowledge, her know-how are not clever. All right then, perhaps all these traces didn't make it into the abridged version or something.

Okay then, perhaps Cathy had too many hormones racing through her body ;) But the woman surely could find the right words for her feelings. Not that easy ;)

But we are still not talking about women who pursue the life of the mind. Even the glorious Mrs Woolf, while conjuring fascinating heroines, gave us women who were significantly less clever than she.

So much for re-reading Mrs Dalloway. Is that all she drew from it? Talk about an intellectual woman.

In the majestic Possession, AS Byatt actually offers a heroine who is a professor (hurrah), but although Maud Bailey does have a happy ending, she has to fight against repression and sexual fear, keeping up her defences with work.

Call me not clever too, but I really don't see what one thing has to do with another or how Maud Bailey is supposed to control the outside conventions of the - in Possession - male territory of academic research. If Maud Bailey is not clever in the eyes of this woman then who is?

The only example I could think of where cleverness and happiness meet, unashamed, untrammelled, is Elizabeth Bennet. She might not stalk the groves of academe, but her wit speaks of a sharp mind, and she gets everything she wants.

Oh my. We like Elizabeth Bennet immensely and indeed consider her a clever, witty, charming, funny character BUT to place her above, and in detriment of, all those other female characters is not something we find very 'clever'.

Ending up with a Mr Darcy is not the only route to joy, and all sentient females should fight against such simplicity. But I would love to see a feisty, scholarly heroine driving all before her, a sort of Lara Croft of the mind. Bring on the brilliant women.

Bring them on? But they arrived centuries ago!

Let's take a look at those women who came out of the Brontës' quills. Shirley Keeldar - isn't she the definition of clever and intelligent? A woman in a man's position, managing her estate and her finances as well as any man could, if not better. She loves reading. She's funny and spirited. She has resources and knows how to act in most situations. She's brave. But if you don't read the book you can't find out about it.

Helen Huntingdon. Perhaps she too let her hormones get the better of her at first but surely once she realised how matters stood she was clever enough planning her escape and the means of earning her and her son's living. A woman artist who sells her works in the 19th century!

Lucy Snowe. Fastly upgraded from mere children's nurse to English teacher in a foreign school. She learns French quickly. And you can be nothing but clever and intelligent to have M. Paul Emanuel fall in love with you.

Shall we continue? We could, and we only talked about the Brontës' heroines. There are hundreds more by other authors. But BrontëBlog readers will all know what we mean.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Shirley, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Villette, Wuthering Heights