While all books don’t follow the happily ever after synopsis, there is an expectation for how the female characters will spend their lives. Lately every book I’ve been reading ends with one or more female character having children at the novel’s conclusion. I’m relieved to know that my favorite characters have a happy conclusion to their story. However, why are all the women having kids? While certainly many of these female protagonists wanted children, not all of them did.
For example, there’s Rita in Diane Setterfield’s 2018 novel, Once Upon a River. Rita isn’t married and she has a fulfilling job. She makes it clear at the story’s beginning that she loves children, she just doesn’t want to have any of her own. This makes sense as Rita works as a midwife who is haunted by the deaths of her patients. I was completely on board with her decision. Rita is such a strong and intelligent character, what does it matter if she never has kids? Yet once Rita meets and falls in love with Henry Daunt, suddenly she wants to have kids. This is everything to do with the fact that Henry wants kids and Rita wants Henry. Instead of discussing this like adults, or even choosing to go their separate ways, Rita changes her mind and pines for a child of her own. I understand Rita wanting to be with Henry but Henry doesn’t even try to see things from Rita’s point of view. On the other hand, Henry seems open to the idea of adoption but Rita dismisses this. Rita feels all the pressure to change herself for Henry. What a disappointing ending for such a promising character.
Anna, from Leo Tolstoy’s 1878 novel Anna Karenina, is far from being a perfect person, but she does suffer. She marries a man she doesn’t love and they have a child together. When Anna leaves her husband, she is forced to choose between her child– essentially her happily ever after– and a future with her new lover. It’s clear that Anna is supposed to make the “right” choice: to stay with her child and husband. After all, what mother would leave her child? However, her choice was more involved than this. She didn’t want to have to leave her son but the patriarchy at the time allowed a man to have custody over his son. If Anna wanted any freedom, she would have to leave her son. It was an impossible choice and there was no clear happily ever after.
In Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, Melanie is a constant friend to Scarlet, who acts as the main protagonist. One second Scarlet hates Melanie, the next she relies on her kind heart. What no reader expected was Melanie’s sudden death following the birth of her child. While there was some foreshadowing to her death, as she was told she was too weak to carry a child to term, it was nevertheless shocking. Since Gone with the Wind is a war story, it’s natural to assume that the characters would die in battle, if they died at all.
Following the characters’ safe returns, Melanie is the one who dies. What’s even more unfair is Scarlet had just started to befriend Melanie. Melanie’s death was rash to say the least. She dies peacefully, content in fulfilling her womanly purpose. While this makes sense to her, it’s jarring for modern readers. If Melanie’s entire purpose in the story was being a mother and wife, then why did she spend so much time apart from her husband? Also she never got to know her child so her motherhood experience was short-lived. While her baby’s birth was celebrated, her friends mourned her greatly. Ultimately, Melanie’s happy ending was anything but. It’s easy to say that women were featured less in classic literature, or that they were typecasted in the role of mother and wife, but this stereotype continues today.
Everything from The Winter’s Tale to Once Upon a River has almost all their female characters married and with children. From a publication date of 1623 to 2018, not much has changed. While male characters have evolved in their literary roles, changing from husband to father to soldier to friend to villain to antihero to sidekick, women’s roles have hardly changed. Considering that most male characters in stories have happy endings that consist of traveling, work fulfillment, or making a difference, female characters are expected to have one kind of happy ending.