rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2010-12-13 06:29 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2010-12-13 06:29 pm
day 16 of favorite female characters
I'm going to try posting about one favorite female character per day. Maybe two. Goal: finish by December 23.
Before Jessica Fletcher* and Murder, She Wrote, there was Miss Jane Marple.
Fluffy white hair; a harmless, even foolish deamonor; a penchant for gardening and knitting--Jane Marple didn't strike fear in the hearts of criminals. Too bad they didn't know the true nature of their adversary.
True nature is what Jane Marple saw--she knew how people acted, understood what motivated them and was able to use that comprehension to solve crime.
I grew up reading Agatha Christie's mystery novels. By the time I finished high school, I had read all of them, plus a biography and the autobiography of Agatha Christie. Miss Marple's mysteries were my favorite, mostly because I loved picturing secretly murderous men and women being flummoxed by this not so sweet elderly spinster.
Christie's novels are very much a reflection of her time and place; I'm sure I'd be appalled now at the casual racism present in many of her books. And alas, her books haven't aged well in other ways, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for them. They were creative and great escapist fiction. (Minus the gruesomeness of many modern murder mysteries. We all know how I feel about gruesome, right?)
*Angela Lansbury did actually play Miss Marple in one film.
Before Jessica Fletcher* and Murder, She Wrote, there was Miss Jane Marple.
Fluffy white hair; a harmless, even foolish deamonor; a penchant for gardening and knitting--Jane Marple didn't strike fear in the hearts of criminals. Too bad they didn't know the true nature of their adversary.
True nature is what Jane Marple saw--she knew how people acted, understood what motivated them and was able to use that comprehension to solve crime.
I grew up reading Agatha Christie's mystery novels. By the time I finished high school, I had read all of them, plus a biography and the autobiography of Agatha Christie. Miss Marple's mysteries were my favorite, mostly because I loved picturing secretly murderous men and women being flummoxed by this not so sweet elderly spinster.
Christie's novels are very much a reflection of her time and place; I'm sure I'd be appalled now at the casual racism present in many of her books. And alas, her books haven't aged well in other ways, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for them. They were creative and great escapist fiction. (Minus the gruesomeness of many modern murder mysteries. We all know how I feel about gruesome, right?)
*Angela Lansbury did actually play Miss Marple in one film.