506
PARTISAN REVIEW
flightiness; to the heroine of dependability, the hero ine of impetuous–
ity; to the heroine of sublimity, the earth mother; to the heroine of
submissiveness, the heroine of spirit. Relative to the fi ctional heroine,
the fictional hero is a monument to the stability of civilization . His is
the virtually monolithic presence past whom society parades its
variousl y desirable ladies.
Among heroines undoubtedly the most influential in the evo lu–
tion of our present-day liberated woman has been th e heroin e of spirit.
She is also the most treacherou s of projections of
a;
desirable female
image for it is the heroine of spirit who has for so long led women to be
deceived that their possibilities in life are bigger than they usually turn
out to be and confirmed men in the not wholly mistaken belief tha t
high spirit exists in a woman only to seduce them and then expire. The
history of the spirited heroine is a vast and marvelous study; I am afraid
I speak of it here only most inadequately, to call a ttention to the cruel
disparity there has always been in literature, as in life, between female
promise and femal e fulfillment. From Aristophanes to George Berna rd
Shaw the defeat of female spirit has given comedy some of its most
bracing material and, in tragedy, underscored the idea that for some–
thing
to
be worth destroying it must be of special value to begin with.
Obviously heroes too, and not only spirited heroines, are undone in
stories and plays but there are discernible differences between how they
suffer defeat. The defea ted hero in literature always remains a com–
manding figure, deserving of our regard: Hector is a hero even in the
humiliation that Achilles infli cts upon him in dea th. The defeated
heroine is the object of our pity or of our loving ridicul e. In being
brought down , she is put in her place; it is a familiar place. Again, a
hero is defeated not because he is heroic but desp ite it. Hubris may be
an invitation to disaster but it is only a possible attribute of the h eroic
disposition , it is not identical with heroism. Femal e spirit in itself is
the offense, often so extreme as to be punishabl e by death. I have been
able to think of only one novel,
Wuthering H eights,
in which the
death of a spirited heroine is her only conce ivabl e consummation
within the terms of the story. Much more typi ca lly the h eroine of spirit
is killed to placate society: society issues the decree, the novelist is her
executioner. Of Emma Bovary, Flaubert gave us the empath eti c reas–
surance, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi"; but was her death actually the
only possible outcome of her situation? Could she not have been
allowed to find a rich protector or become a successful provincial
cocotte? She did what she wanted to do instead of what society and her
dull husband would have wished. That was her cr ime; it is hard
to
