Having just written a Hub on the fictional men I'd like to meet, my mind turned naturally to the women characters who I have found to be the most intriging. There are many; however, here goes.

Orlando.

Virginia Woolf must have had a lot of fun writing this novel, as it traces the history of English Literature from the 16th century to the early 20th using some of the styles of writing and some of the narrative strategies, with some of the social mores and gender roles thrown in for good measure. Oh yes, and her protagonist starts out as a boy, grows up, lives for about four hundred years, and somehow, inexplicably, becomes a woman during the 18th century. So my first choice here doesn't become a woman until she is about 200 years old.

Now, you might wonder just what Virginia Woolf was playing at (or smoking) when she decided to create such a protagonist. The most interesting (to me) is how Orlando's life changes when he becomes female (apart from the most obvious physical attributes, that is).  Orlando is transformed from a wealthy, important figure of noble family and heritage, with a government position as ambassador, to a -- nobody.  As a woman, she can hold no titles in land, position, or even name.  Orlando is dispossessed of everything that made up her identity as a man, and she has to join a band of gypsies in order to learn how to survive.  Apart from being scathing satire, this indictment of the times is revealing, too.  When Orlando returns to England (now mysteriously into the Victorian era), she has to contend with Victorian prudishness.  At least as a gypsy she could wear loose baggy androgynous clothing.  Now she is strapped into dresses and arrives home to her family estate to discover she cannot claim title to it. 

Woolf's essay in the implications of androgyny is fascinating.  I'd like to talk to Orlando when she arrives back in England, and hear of her life as a young man, when she was able to be as innocent as a Victorian girl, and her later life, when she is rendered a nonentity by the simple fact of being female.  A great story. 

Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders is another woman who is a product of her times. She leaves children behind with the pragmatism of the poor and makes her living the only ways she can. The novel is about money, what it can buy, what its dearth causes, how much everything costs (I've never seen a novel with so many sums of money counted out to the farthing, accounted for, exchanged for goods and services, used to allow the bearer to pose as someone of a higher class). Money is the driving force behind all the action, and Moll is just as much prey to its value as everyone else in the novel. I'd like to meet her at any point in her journey, as her life is governed by such a desire to avoid poverty that I'd be bound to learn a few tips from her I could use in this current economic recession. . . .

Of all Shakespeare's women I've chosen Isabella from Measure for Measure.  This was a tough choice, but she is the most interesting character because she starts the play attempting to withdraw from the world and enter a convent, and ends being proposed to by the Duke.  What's great about the ending, though, is that we don't know whether or not she accepts. 

Isabella is intelligent, rational, reasonable, and well able to argue.  She is forced out of the convent and back into busy city life when her brother is condemned to death for a minor indiscretion, and she must plead for his life.  This pitts her against the cold Angelo, whose very blood has ice in it, we are told.  That is, until he sees Isabella, and falls for her.

What happens next is outside of the realm of tragedy or of comedy: the action of this drama takes place in the gray area of moral ambiguity and careful attention to Isabella's perplexed attempts to save her brother and maintain her chastity.  Angelo (substituting for the Duke) propositions her, saying he will pardon her brother if she sleeps with him.  She says no; and indeed, one of the truly funny moments in the play is when her brother tries to convince her it wouldn't really be that much of a sin. . . . 

The Duke comes to her rescue by devising a nifty trick: Isabella is to agree to sleep with Angelo, but in the dark Angelo's old girlfriend (whom he dumped when her dowry was lost at sea) will take Isabella's place, and so two wrongs will be righted.  With a third "wrong."  Of course, Angelo gives the order to have the brother executed anyway (doesn't happen, but I'll spare you the details).  So, Isabella, under the impression that her brother is dead, publicly exposes Angelo and is considered to be insane for accusing a man known to be rigid in his self-control. 

Yes, it's a convoluted plot, and I'm afraid I haven't done a very good job of explaining it; however, I'd really like to meet Isabella and find out whether or not she intends to accept the Duke's proposal of marriage or follow her first inclination and enter the convent as a nun in the order of St. Anne.  Modern productions tend to have Isabella staring at the Duke in disbelief at his outlandish proposal, and modern directors and actors get to choose how the role is played.  But I'd like to ask the fictional Isabella herself what she thinks about it all. 

Of course. Who wouldn't want to meet this wonderful character? Chaucer obviously had fun drawing her personality, and since he was a keen observer of human behavior (among his many occupations he was a justice of the peace in Kent, so would have met all kinds of characters).

Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,

For she koude of that art the olde daunce.

She makes me think of a middle-aged woman with the social pretensions of that awful woman in the TV show "Keeping Up Appearances," combined with the sexual savvy of a Moll Flanders, combined with the pragmatic disposal of husbands (five) of, say,  a Jack Kevorkian.  A skilled dressmaker, she has no need to collect husbands for their wealth, so she must just enjoy it as some kind of blood sport? 

The tale she tells the company is interesting, too, as it is a feminist tract -- a rapist is given a pardon conditional on his being able to research and find the answer to the question "what do women want?"  In order to get the answer, he has to marry a hag instead of a young, nubile virgin.  Hmmmmm! 

Yep -- I'd definitely like to meet this interesting woman and hear some of her other stories.  Her life alone would be a great tale.