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The Terrible Women I'Ve Been, Meagan Rose Stoops

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis is a collection of eight short fictions exploring the characterization of unlikable women in fiction. Each work herein incorporates the themes of romantic relationships and denial of traditional female gender roles. The female characters within embody traits of bitterness, passion, perseverance, rage, cunning, and pursuits of self-preservation and love as motivating forces. Through these characters' actions and choices, the narratives dissolve and reject the commonly accepted portrayals of women in fiction in an attempt to grasp at a greater, more complex truth of human nature and the female psyche.