Why Does Literature Love Messy Female Protagonists?
Literature is in its problematic female protagonist era, with the likes of Ottessa Moshfegh, Sayaka Murata and Lisa Taddeo leading the way in representing the very real complexities of existing as a woman in the 21st century. Books such as Ghost Lover by Taddeo, Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, and Luster by Raven Leilani are compelling case studies into this rising cultural phenomenon, one that allows the women reading along with these menacing minxes to break free from oppressive stereotypes that have lurked between the pages of female lit for too long.
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin follows main character Greta, a woman who transcribes for her town’s renowned sex therapist. She becomes involved in a convoluted affair with a woman healing from recent trauma. Greta is a woman in her 40s with a trail of anguish; her father was incarcerated, and she found her troubled mother dead from suicide at thirteen and her remaining adolescence was spent being passed from family member to family member. It is, at its core, a deranged exploration of the impenetrable relationship between sexual obsession and trauma, titillating between intense sexual fantasies and Greta’s relationship with existing in an ageing body.
Ari in Ghost Lover (the first in Taddeo’s collection of short stories of the same name), is fixated with her sexuality in a different form. Ari is obsessed with her self-image and attraction to men, suffering from a form of restrictive eating disorder, dominating her internal narrative at times as she navigates a life fuelled by a desire to seek revenge on her ex-partner, Nick. The intimate and sometimes uncomfortable microscope under which we are given access to her inner monologues provokes feelings of aversion towards her. Her intense resentment toward her ex inspires Ari: she starts a dating advice app which unexpectedly leads her to mild fame, culminating in becoming a Netflix sensation. However, Ari goes to extreme extents to ensure a relationship remains with Nick, no matter how formidable her methods, salaciously penetrable in the quote:
“You always brought on women you would imagine him wanting. One of the reasons was for the angry throb it drew from your pelvis. Another was so that you would never invite him back into your life. You could not feasibly because there were too many limbs for you to be jealous of.”
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
To some, these themes of sexual obsession towards men may seem like patriarchy with pen and paper. After all, at its core, the story is about a woman who wants to be wanted by men and wants women to be jealous of the apparent performative effortlessness in which this happens. This is a commonly repeated sentiment. The female desire to be desired remains; its expression permeates. And outside of literature, this desire is so often reviled as a threat; sexual modesty and submission being the norm embedded into us from birth. A man with sexual desire is praised, a woman is inversely deemed a deviant.
In Luster by Raven Leilani, we are taken directly into the 23-year-old main character, Edie’s, pit of sexual, sensual desire for male intimacy. Its intense urgency is felt through the descriptions of manic lust:
“A man’s profound, adrenal craziness, the tenuousness of his restraint. I feel it on me and inside me like I am being possessed.”
Edie’s narrative differs from Greta and Ari’s as it is entwined with the real challenges she faces as a Black woman in a society that heavily fetishises Black bodies. It’s an important cultural dynamic permeating throughout the dialogue as she battles with the want to be desired and the systemic racism still running through the veins of society. Edie’s experience of being sexually liberated - or sexually limited - will always have that added dimension to contest with, alongside modern day woman hood.
“Women are messy, sometimes to the point of being unlikeable, and most of the time it tracks back to the trauma of growing up as a girl in this world.”
Is it un-feminist to be driven by our desires to sexually please men? Perhaps, but in some ways, our raw sexuality is imbued with the misfortunes we individually face in trauma, experiences, and societal constructs. We are meant to live in a time of female empowerment, where we are above the need to bend to a man’s will and beckon. ‘Dump him’ discourse is stitched onto bags, purses, and our brains through Instagram captions. In all these stories however, the indefatigable observational lens we are permitted access to does not romanticise the women’s darkest thoughts but writes them as facts outside of the realm of moral critique.
For most of us, the TikTok therapist telling us to set boundaries and protect our energy is presenting a utopian theoretical framework that is difficult to translate into real life. A source of pain that I think many women face is a result of harbouring unrealistic expectations placed on us by a feminist leaning digital media.
Women are messy, sometimes to the point of being unlikeable, and most of the time it tracks back to the trauma of growing up as a girl in this world. Many of us can relate to some aspects of Edie, Greta or Ari and the many other written worlds based around the experiences of subversive women (think Boy Parts, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Animal) because they are not narrative voices trying to appeal to impossibly high moral standards.
We are in a renaissance of writing that unapologetically focuses on how women exist in a complex web of misogyny, expectation, and simultaneous attempts at emancipation, providing a critical cathartic, relatable release. It is reframing the discourse of a hysterical woman under the microscope of understanding why and how we got here.
Words: Gigi El-Halaby
