"Unhinged" and complex female literary characters (e.g. Mrs Danvers) - who else will I like?

[JohnSnowsTie]

So I've noticed a theme in the sort of literary female character I enjoy reading about. Examples are Mrs Danvers, Miss Havisham, Lady Dedlock, the Woman in Black...

Who else/what other works will I enjoy based on this?

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen

Misery by Stephen King

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Jane Eyre

[AnneWentworth]

Hmmm, I think Madame Bovary (friggin love Emma Bovary) and Anna Karenina.

[CheeseStrawWars]

Notes On A Scandal by Zoe Heller

[Mefisto]

Henry James- Turn of the Screw?

[ancientbuchanan]

Bertram Mason in The Wide Sargasso Sea, once you have read Jane Eyre.

The awful woman in Little Dorrit ( is it) who influenced TattyCoram.

The awful Mrs Clennam in Little Dorrit

The awful woman in David Copperfield ( is it) who is in love with Steerforth

Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair

Rachel in My Cousin Rachel


Lady Macbeth in Macbeth

Grendel's mother in Beowolf

The Green Knight's wife in Gawain and the Green Knight ( trans Simon Armitage)


All the women in the later parts of The Once and Future King apart from the stupid Guinevere.

Miss Brodie in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

[ancientbuchanan]

Bertha not Bertram. Bleep phone.

[JohnSnowsTie]

Thanks all - I look forward to getting through all of these. Have read Notes on a Scandal, Macbeth and Jane Eyre but will give all the others a go.

Remus you have just reminded me that I have TWIW on my iPod as yet I listened to - will crack on with that on my way home, so to you.

[TheLightPassenger]

On a less highbrow note, Gone Girl, Dare Me by Megane Abbott, or The Silent Wife

[CoteDAzur]

Nobody has yet mentioned Lisbeth Salander of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo?

Unhinged - check.

Complex - check.

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

I've just finished the 13th Tale. Full of interesting/unhinged female characters. I loved it.

[ZeroSomeGameThingy]

Therese Raquin!

[TheBookofRuth]

You must've read Wuthering Heights, surely? Cathy is the dictionary definition of "unhinged female".

[PomBearWithAnOFRS]

Forever Amber? I loved it, and the ending actually made me shout "nooooo I want to know What Happened Next!"
It's not so much that she's unhinged (well, maybe a little lust crazed for The One) but she is compelling and I found I just had to find out what happened next, and next, and next...
Rose Madder by King is good too, I always wondered just HOW he got so well inside the head of an abused wife the way he did. Again, it's not that Rose herself is unhinged, it's that she finally realises that she will do anything to escape her abusive husband and be with the man she loves and who loves her, even if it means - well, not to post a spoiler, but Rose decides what's best for her new man and herself, and he gets no say in the end.
Game of Thrones is a mega-epic read - the series is packed with mad people, and the power crazed and has just too many characters to list, both male and female. It's a massive read, even just the "story so far" but is ever so interesting, and action-packed to say the least!

[nettlefairy]

you have to read Layla by Nina de la Mer - REALLY interesting and complex female character. I've just bought it (think it's just been published) and can't put it down. She's a lap dancer working in London and is also a mum. Thought provoking

[SpookedMackerel]

You might like Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffeneger (disclaimer - I didn't really like it myself).

[Thehoardernextdoor]

I enjoyed Gillespie and I (I think it's by Jane Harris)

[OneHolyCow]

The woman upstairs by Claire Messud is pretty unhinged.

[TheNunsOfGavarone]

Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood; a short, haunting novella about an unhinged Anglo-Irish family and their leaky, crumbling and comfortless country house.

[JohnSnowsTie]

Thanks everyone - loads to be going on here.

One as it happens I was already reading The Woman Upstairs when I first posted!

[SarahAndFuck]

A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth.

Unhinged and wonderful, it's one of my favourite books. It's about a woman called Annie who moves to a new house and becomes obsessed by one of the neighbours.

[cheapskatemum]

How about Ursula in The Rainbow & Women in Love by D H Lawrence?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Ruth from Life and Loves of a She Devil

[LumpySpacePrincessOhMyGlob]

The Lollipop Shoes, that has a superb unhinged female also Gentlemen and Players.

[UnknownGnome]

I've just finished reading Nearest Thing to Crazy by Elizabeth Forbes (I think). Very good. Definitely some un-hingedness in there!

[Gemma10]

The made wife in the attic in Jane Eyre!
Also Madam Bovary
Also Miss Havisham