Heeding the Antiheroine's Call: the Rise of the Antiheroine in Literature and Popular Culture

In my thesis, I argue three assertions: 1) that the 21 st Century antiheroine
who has figured so prominently in literature and film is an evolution of the
heroine archetype that combines both the action-oriented traditional male hero
archetype and the tragically flawed, antagonistic anti-heroine archetype, 2) that
the foundation for this newly modified pop culture antiheroine can be traced back
to Margaret Mitchell's iconic character, Scarlett O'Hara, and finally 3) that this
new modem heroine archetype, the antiheroine, has become an integral part of
popular culture, both in literature and film as well as other popular media. As my
primary texts I used Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, the David O.
Selznick film ofthe same title, Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand
Faces, as well as several other primary and secondary sources, including the
published volume of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind related letters.