I think women are less about violence and more about
ethereal power, but when faced with violence, women react. Strong women fight
and sometimes they win. A surprising number of stories feature women warriors
who by fighting, show how strong they are as women. I’ve talked with Connie
about some of these wonderful gals before, including her magnificent Jessica
Wyeth in The Jessica Trilogy, but here’s a
new batch to consider.
Eowyn, from J. R. R. Tolkein’s The
Two Towers, the second part of The
Lord of the Rings Trilogy, dresses up as a boy to fight the monsters
threatening the lives of the people in her father’s kingdom. Granted, the comforts
of a middle-earth castle are limited, but she leaves them anyway for the
battlefield. The only way she can do this is to pretend she’s someone else. But
when she wields her sword, her actions show core feminine strengths of protectionism
and love of family.
Hua Mulan from the Disney movie Mulan, leaves home disguised as a man in order to fulfill her aging
father’s military obligation. She fights the misconceptions of her fellow
soldiers who ask, “Can she do that?” She
fights the opinion that women can’t fight. Ultimately, she decimates the enemy.
(The movie is based on a Chinese ballad
which I didn’t read. Please don’t hate me.)
Tania Chermova is a sniper in War of the Rats by David L. Robbins. I admire her single-minded ambition to leave
the comforts of home for war. Among the
ruins of Stalingrad, she does her job coolly and calmly. I claim it’s a
superbly feminine trait to do what’s necessary, no matter what. Still, Robbins
chose to have Tania shot at the end in an ambiguous conclusion and an obvious
statement about the unfairness of war.
Ludmelia, the heroine in my new novel Amber Wolf, becomes a warrior to avenge her mother’s death. She joins the resistance
to find the Russian soldiers responsible. Still, the act of killing haunts her.
Horrible acts shake her to the core. Despite everything, she remains
emphatically human with all the self-doubt, confusion, and passion that we all
share.
I think women fight because their convictions leave them no choice. The
heroines in these novels don’t shrink from their tasks, detestable as they might
be. They don’t run back to the comforts of home because their work is hard.
Maybe we admire them because given the right circumstances, we’d to the
same things, too.
Ursula is a retired engineer who
writes gripping stories about strong women struggling against impossible odds
to achieve their dreams. Her award-winning novel, Purple Trees,
exposes a stark side of rural New England life in the experiences of a young
woman who struggles for normalcy despite a vicious and hidden past. After
losing her parents, Lily Phelps grows up fast to find work and build a future,
but her secrets threaten every one she loves, and even her very life.
Ursula taps her Eastern European
heritage in her WW II novel, Amber Wolf.
Destitute after her parents are taken by Russian soldiers, young Ludmelia
Kudirka joins the farmers who trade pitchforks for guns in a David-and-Goliath
struggle against the mighty Soviet war machine. Rich with scenes and legends of
Lithuania, Amber Wolf gets the turmoil of 1944 into the story of a
family torn apart by the Soviet occupation.
Her short stories have appeared in magazines
and the popular Insanity Tales
anthologies. For more about Ursula and her prize-winning flash fiction, visit
her on http://ursulawong.wordpress.com.
