“You got to change your evil ways...,
woman” I am probably misquoting this song but between Santana's
song "
Evil Ways" and ELO's “
Evil Woman” bouncing around in that radio station
in my brain, I have the topic of evil women on my mind. When I recently asked my co-workers to
name some literary evil women, most of them named wicked step mothers
from a variety of fairy tales (Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Cinderella,
Sleeping Beauty, etc.)

The second most commonly named were also
characters out of children's literature. These included the Wicked
Witch of the West, The Snow Queen in Narnia, and Cruella de Ville. Of more modern children's literature, people mentioned Mrs. Coulter
from
His Dark Material and the deadly duo in the
Harry Potter
series, Mrs. Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange.
But I want to concentrate on adult
literature in this post. And the discussion got more interesting! Was
Scarlett O'Hara evil or was she just vain and selfish? Was Carrie's
mother in the Stephen King novel evil or just mentally ill? Are evil men and women treated differently in literature?
So, in no particular order, here are some
evil women for you to ponder over:
Mrs. Danvers –
Rebecca (M) by
Daphne du Maurier. Danvers is the housekeeper of Manderley, home
of Maximilian de Winter and his unfaithful wife, Rebecca. A year
after Rebecca dies in a boating accident Maxim brings home a new
wife. Danvers remains faithful to Rebecca, refusing to accept any
changes that the new Mrs. de Winters wants. Danvers tries to break
up the marriage in a number of ways, including setting fire to
Manderley!
Annie Wilkes –
Misery (M) by
Stephen King. I love
this character even though she is evil and, in my opinion, batshit
crazy! Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for best Actress for her
movie portrayal of Annie. King has stated that Wilkes is cunning, brutal
and dangerously disturbed, and who hides this all behind cheery facade. A
nurse by training, Wilkes does not have the best bedside manner. She
finds Paul Sheldon, a writer, after a car accident and brings him to
her home to recuperate. She fawns over him stating that she is his”
number one fan” of his character, Misery Chastain. The care that
Wilkes gives to Sheldon is enough to give any one nightmares.
Nurse
Ratchet – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (M)
by Ken Kesey. This is another nurse that you would not want at your
bedside. She is a cold, heartless tyrant who loves throwing around
her authority, often at the expense of her patients. She is the head
administrative nurse at the Salem, Oregon State Mental Hospital. She
is such a bully that one patient even commits suicide. Not the best
nurse to have on a psychiatric ward!
Lady Macbeth is a character in
Shakespeare's Macbeth. (M) I
feel most people will have heard of this character and her most famous
line of “Out, damn'd spot! Out”. For those who are unfamiliar
with this story, here is her character in brief. She
is the wife to the play's protagonist, Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman.
She is power hungry but woman at this time rarely have power. So she
nags Macbeth into committing regicide so that she can become the
Queen of Scotland. Nasty stuff.
Akasha –
Queen of the Damned (M) by
Anne Rice. Queen Akasha of Kemet became the first vampire when an
evil spirit named Emel entered her body. She rules with King Enkil,
who she turned into a vampire, circa 5,000 B.C. When the vampire
Lestat becomes a rock star in the end of the 1980's, Akasha is awoken
by his music. Rice describes Akasha as fundamentally dark and
nihilistic, without morals, ethics or compassion. I know some would
not mind a vampire killing other vampires, but when you have become as
fond of Lestat and Louis as I have, well, you mind.
Hilly
Holbrook – The Help (M) by Kathryn Stockett. God, this woman is a piece of work!. From
outward appearances she is the model of society. She is the president
of the Jackson Junior League and various other charities. Yet, cross
her and she can have you arrested, imprisoned for stealing, your
friends and family fired, have you evicted, and have your car
repossessed. She can even run you out of town, all without getting her
pretty little hands dirty.
And
finally, Cersei Lannister from
George R.R. Martin's–
Song of Ice and Fire (M) (aka Game
of Thrones series) She is the woman I loved to hate this past summer,
as it took the better part of the summer to read all five books. I
love the series (as you can tell from my previous posts about this
book). I won't go into this again, but I will submit a couple of
comments about Cersei. It is interesting she never took her
husband's name of Baratheon. And even if she loves you, you can not
trust her, as her brother and children find out. She is nasty,
evil and conniving. Hating her helps the reader love the books
even more.

And there is one true character that
came up when talking about this subject.
Joan Crawford is depicted
as an abusive mother in
Mommie Dearest (M). But
that is the subject for another blog post someday.
So, Dear Reader, who would you vote for
as your most evil literary female character?
That’s a quite evil list and also those books were very popular and the characters too.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment. More evil people are coming in a new post - Bad Seeds. This involves bad children. Evil is such an interesting topic don't you think?
ReplyDeleteDolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. She was evil!
ReplyDelete