Women Empowerment In ‘The Mortal Instruments’ by Cassandra Clare - by Neha Talla

Women Empowerment In ‘The Mortal Instruments’ by Cassandra Clare

By Neha Talla 7D

Books are great. “The Mortal Instruments” is a book series by Cassandra Clare written for the ages 12 to 18. It shows a lot of morality about strength in women and displays a love for both men and women: Gender Equality. The main women in the book series that show strength are the well-developed characters of Cassandra Clare, Clary Fray, Isabelle Lightwood and Jocelyn Fairchild.

Women Empowerment

Women are not treated equally in a lot of places. They are considered weak, but that is just not true. Women are just as strong as men, and in many cases, stronger. Who takes care of the food and welfare of the family? Who has to fight for their rights?

Despite all of this, I have seen many authors take this matter into their hands and wonderfully incorporated feminism into their novels. I have seen this is a book series by Sara Shepard called ‘Pretty Little Liars’ but mainly in another book series ‘The Mortal Instruments’. Here’s a bit more about its author Cassie (Cassandra Clare)!

Cassandra Clare

Do you think it’s easy writing nearly forty full novels within ten years? I think not! It takes nearly two years for most authors to write one novel, while Cassandra Clare wrote nearly three times as many novels!
Cassandra Clare (Her real name being Judith Rumelt) was born in Tehran, Iran. As a kid, she travelled quite a bit which probably lead to her experiences being written down on paper.

Cassandras most famous novels are the book series ‘The Mortal Instruments’, which I think displays a great amount of woman empowerment. A trait about Cassie that shows me she is a strong feminist is that she has worked with a lot of other female authors that has produced even more amazing novels!

The main reason I saw women empowerment in Cass’s series was because of her female characters, majorly Clary, Isabell and Jocelyn. Let’s start with Clary……

Clary Fray

It is very hard for someone to adapt to change, and we face that challenge a lot, but I think the way that Clary Fray handled it, dealt with it, shows how strong she is as a teenager living in a warrior world.

Clary Fray is an average art student whose life is turned upside down the one day that she decides to go to the Pandemonium Club with her best friend Simon. She is only sixteen yet she has to adapt to her new life, when a random guy called Jace, comes into her life, along with demon fighting wierdos called Shadowhunters who expect her to save her mother (and the world) before her mother’s ex-husband kills her, and all of this in the ShadowWorld. Oh and by the way, her father is not a brave soldier who she thought was dead, but a living mass murderer. Also all of her childhood memories are wiped, so yes, she has no life. Must be easy to deal with right? No. This really goes to show how courageous she is.

My friend Aarushi says, “She killed a greater demon with no training whatsoever, when Jace trained his whole life just to do that!”.  Another character in ‘The Mortal Instruments’ is Isabelle, and she shows amazing valor as a sixteen-year-old.

Isabell Lightwood

Being trusted with a secret of family issues at a very young age definitely is not easy to deal with, but I think Isabelle Lightwood came out of this as a much stronger woman.

When Izzy is told about her father and her mother’s faulty relationship at the age of ten, she didn’t know how to cope with it, which must have deeply affected her character. But, I still think that even though Izzy is much tougher on the outside, and never lets people in, she is still a magnificent woman, and that just shows that no matter what is thrown at us women, we can always handle it.

My friend Manavi says, “She shows that not just guys can be fighters. And she kills demons with six-inch-high heels!”

Isabelle Lightwood is personally my favorite character because of her amazing mental strength after everything that happened to her. For me, she is a true example of a warrior, of a Shadowhunter. Another woman that has withheld a lot of pressure is Jocelyn Fairchild.

Jocelyn Fairchild

Jocelyn fell in love with Valentine Morgenstern in her teenage years, and even married him, but soon when she got pregnant and he tried to poison their children in her whoomb, she decided to break it off. After that, it’s not easy living as the ex-wife of the world’s greatest mass murderer.

“Jocelyn shows people you don’t need men to be happy”, says Diya.

All in all, I believe that Cassandra Clare, and her female characters, Clary, Jocelyn and Isabelle are spectacular women, that show a great deal of Women Empowerment.