And so we have the critical attributes of the archetypal heroic feminine:

1. The hero challenges the external threat and the heroine challenges the hero. The inverse of that is a figure we're all familiar with, namely Lady MacBeth who rather than challenging the hero to virtue, goads him into evil. A positive example would be Elizabeth Bennet from

“A young woman I’m very fond of said to me: it’s always a problem with men, I’ve had to learn not to overdo. She meant that she had trained herself not to bee too beautiful, too intelligent, too considerate, too independent, too generous, too aggressive, too nice. The “too” of a woman produces violent male reactions and , in addition, the enmity of