by Mary » June 20th, 2006, 7:00 pm
I voted for "well portrayed." To me, his female characters are as alive and vibrant as the male ones. I attribute this to Lewis approaching his characters as individuals rather than genders. Sometimes readers err in thinking that the incorporation of gender roles, which Lewis does, automatically means a diminishing of depth or value in female characters. (I guess this applies to male characters as well, but it's reare that I hear people complaining that male characters fill a less vital role in any given piece of writing, film etc.)
Maybe perception of value relative to gender lies in the reader. I don't know.
It has been a few years since I read That Hideous Strength, four years maybe, and the two characters I remember most are female....the protagonist and the villain. Today, I could tell you much more about those two than I could any of the men.
I am grateful to Lewis that he does not try and write from a feminine perspective, and sticks to the individuality of his characters. In the past I have had the misfortune to read male authors who try to take on a "female" voice, and it can be painful. Do men get frustrated with women authors who try and do the same with masculine perspective? I wonder.
Patrick O'Brian is one of my favorite authors, and I am about to start the seventh book in the Aubrey-Maturin series. O'Brian's develops solid characters that deepen the more you read, but these characters are all men! I find his women characters, the few that are in his books, to be as flat as Dutch pancakes....even the ones who are supposedly secondary rather than periforal characters. And you know, this is totally fine with me! When I want to read about women, I don't go for a series taking place on the sea in wartime in the late 18th century in boats.
I prefer honest flatness of female characters than strained effort at portrayal.
But, as I said previously, Lewis doesn't bug me in either of these ways. I see gender as more of an afterthought in his characterization, something that might bother readers who have gender at the front of their own minds.