Literary Traditions: “Draw Every Female Character in Every Story Our Class Has Read This Semester”

Writes Sinclaire Thomas (’22):

It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do for my final project for Professor Norrie Epstein’s Literary Traditions. For a while, I wanted to focus on Medea because it was my favorite story of the semester. But, after I started seeing everyone else’s finals and how many were based around Medea, I admit I got a little self-conscious. I started thinking about how I could go above and beyond. Think outside of the box. Get creative.

That’s when I thought up the project that would take up the next 140 hours of my life: draw every female character in every story our class has read this semester.

The first day or so was spent sketching and doing research. All of these women existed during specific eras and places. I wanted to make sure that I could be as historically accurate as possible. Characters like Grete Smasa from The Metamorphosis and the Wife from The Wife of Bath’s Tale were easy to figure out. There’s no shortage of art from the time period as well as extant garments for me to be inspired by. But women like Shamhat from The Epic of Gilgamesh and Eve from Genesis have very little or very inaccurate references.

All of the artwork dedicated to Adam and Eve tend to depict a white couple. However, we know that the first humans lived on the African continent and the first Hebrew people lived in the Middle East. For these women, I had to rely more on my own personal interpretation. After I found photo references and came up with sketches I liked, it was just a matter of spending my every waking moment drawing, coloring, and shading.!

In all seriousness, it was a lot of hard work. But it was a lot of fun, too. I love history, so coming up with the costumes was great. And thinking about these women’s personalities and how I could convey them through their poses made the creative process more interesting. At the end of the day, I’m proud of what I turned in… And it only took me four days!