WHO IS THE MAIN FEMALE CHARACTER IN THE ENGLISH NOVEL? (BASIC TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL OF THE XVIII–XXI C.: PSYCHO-LINGUISTIC ASPECT)

Abstract

The present work looks at the study of the main types of leading feminine characters depicted in the English novel in the diachrony of the 18th–21st centuries Changes in time are also characterized by changes in cultural values and social roles in the society. Women have actively stated their intentions to eliminate discrimination and equalize their rights with men. The growing social and psychological status of women in the English-speaking society has focused attention of both writers and readers on a new type of character in literature. Despite the scholars’ great interest in gender representation of the main characters in the novels, neither their socio-psychological types, nor their verbal peculiarities have been highlit enough in the special literature. The main challenge of our study is to reveal the essential characteristics and formation of basic types of female heroines in the English novel during the 18th-21st centuries. In the process of work there were traced the system of three anthropocentres in the novel , specified the concept of “character” in literary semantics, clarified three types of the main female characters represented in the English novel and singled out essential characteristics of each of them. The well-known literary females are close und understandable to the readers not only due to their positive features, but also because of other personal traits, like bravery, audacity, cunningness, slyness, etc. We shall argue that the three basic literary female types conditionally termed (after D. Rampton, 2019) as ’pink’, ’wicked’ and ’assertive’ travel in time in the English literature and transfer from images of women who lived many years ago, into our contemporaries. It is still easy for the readers to recognise and identify them by means of their verbal and non-verbal behaviour as shown by the authors of the novels. The prospects of the study are to carry out a linguistic-psychological experiment for the purpose of establishing British national preferences in the sociio-psychological type of the female literary character, and thus, outline the virtual ideal of the English woman in general.