World Literature: The Hero and the Woman's Role
Rationale
Each of these texts covers a wide range of heroic archetypes from the classics such as Gilgamesh to modern versions of the damaged warrior in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. This establishes the classic hero's path or journey, and the hero's gate is the predecessor to the comic book trope of the origin story. This list also represent women throughout various pieces of literature. While Miss Julie and A Dollhouse may stand out as different, they are the contrast of the mythical woman to the women of the realism genre. There is literature to represent various forms of the woman warrior throughout different genres.
Bocaccio The Decameron
Brecht, Bertolt Caucasian Chalk Circle
–The Good Woman of Setzuan
–Mother Courage and Her Children
Bronte, Charlotte Jane Eyre
Butler, Octavia Bloodchild
–Kindred
–Lilith’s Brood
–Parable of the Sower
–Seed to Harvest
Callaghan, Sheila Kate Crackernuts (play)
Camus, Albert The Stranger
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
de Cervantes, Miguel Don Quixote
Card, Orson Scott Ender’s Game
Chaucer, Geoffrey The Canterbury Tales
Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Carmilla
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin
Hopkinson, Nalo Brown Girl in the Ring
Howard, Robert E. Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus
Ibsen, Henrik A Doll House
–Hedda Gabler
Iron Maiden “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
Jackson, Shirley The Lottery, and Other Stories
–We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Jemisin, N.K. The Fifth Season
Kafka, Franz. Metamorphosis
Lang, Andrew Kate Crackernuts (collected fairy tales)
Lindgren, Astrid Pipi Longstocking
Moliere Tartuffe
de Navarre, Marguerite The Heptameron
Okorafor, Nnedi Who Fears Death, Daw Books
de Pizan, Christine Book of the City of Ladies
Ruff, Matt Lovecraft Country: A Novel
Rhys, Jean Wide Sargasso Sea
Shakespeare, William Hamlet
–Midsummer Night's Fantasy
– Richard III
– Romeo and Juliet
– Titus Andronicus
– Twelfth Night
Shelley, Mary Frankenstein
Strindberg, August Miss Julie
Stravinsky, Igor The Rite of Spring (ballet)
Takeuchi, Naoko Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 1
Tiptree, James Jr. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit
–The Lord of the Rings
