Talking About 'Strong' and 'Female' and 'Characters' by Madeline

Talking About 'Strong' and 'Female' and 'Characters' by Madeline - April 2014 Scholarship Essay

I’ve been reading since elementary school, and books have shaped me and my life in more ways than I can say. But I was surprised when I realized how few characters really, deeply affected me--it was mostly stories and styles of writing that moved me and left an impression. But, as a reader, an aspiring writer, and a generally thoughtful person, there is one character who really did influence how I see characters, how they relate to stories, and what makes a character ‘strong’.

The character that has really influenced me is the narrator from Margaret Atwood’s magnum opus ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, Offred. The story happens primarily in her head, through her recollections of her life before her country (the United States) was taken over by religious extremists and she was forced into essentially prostitution for the sake of procreation. She is a vivid, insightful character who does surprisingly little in her own story. She barely dips her toe into the resistance movement and gives up thoughts of running away after she develops a relationship with another character. When you look at her actions, she is pretty passive--but you hardly get this impression because the reader is stuck in her mind she is clearly angry over her situation. At the end of the day, what makes Offred a good, ‘strong’ character is she is human. She isn’t perfect, she doesn’t scream through the story with her ovaries hoisted aloft declaring her awesomeness to the world--but she does show us what a smart, competent, otherwise normal woman (or person) could become in such an extreme situation, for the sake of survival. Through her story, we learn about how much people are willing to put up with if they get just a little in return, how resistance isn’t always obvious, and how normal people tend to deal with incredible circumstance. Offred is a ‘strong, female, character’ because she’s realistic and human, something a lot of mainstream writers tend to miss when they write characters, particularly women. Offred changed how I view what makes a good character and what political statements and action can look like, and for that I’ll always be grateful.