The Nature of Things is a collection of stories and a preface that examine character motivation. The author is concerned with unexpected reactions and surprising outcomes. The stories are independent of each other and involve a wide range of characters.

The diploma thesis deals with the typology of nine chosen literary women characters of the second half of 19th century Czech literature. The woman character from the Čtyry doby short story by Božena Němcová, Liduška and Lenka by Vítězslav Hálek, lady Ruska, miss Máry and the unnamed protagonist of the U tří lilií short story from Povídky malostranské by Jan Neruda, Caterina and lady Dragopulos from Jan Maria Plojhar by Julius Zeyer and Lucy from Magdalena by Josef Svatopluk Machar, are at focus. The theoretical part outlines the issues of literary styles of the second half of 19th century Czech literature (namely Romanticism, Realism, Parnasism). Also it delimits the extension of markers for interpretation of women literary characters and, moreover, it briefly presents the women social position in 19th century society. In practical part, the thesis aims to analyze thoroughly the chosen characters, trying to point out all the common features as well as the differences among them. The thesis concludes with the comparison of all chosen characters and, at the same time, it sums up the main changes in the depiction of a women literary character throughout the century.