This thesis constitutes an analysis of the construction of female characters in realism with an emphasis on the main female characters in the novels Anna Karenina by L. N. Tolstoy and U registraturi by A. Kovačić. The beginning of the thesis gives a brief account of the mimetic conception of literature and its importance for realism, as well as Barthes’ and Lukacs' ideas about this important period of literary history. Then follows an overview of basic narratological concepts presented through a reading of Maša Grdešić’s book Introduction to Narratology, which will later serve in the analysis of literary works. This is followed by a brief overview of the historical development of feminism as a social movement on the one hand and of feminist literary theory and criticism on the other. In this regard the emphasis is placed on the book The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and Sexual/Textual Politics by Toril Moi. After the first theoretical part, the second part of the thesis presents a narrative analysis of individual novels and then an analysis of female characters from the perspective of feminist theory and criticism. The novel Anna Karenina is analyzed first, with emphasis being placed on the eponymous main female character, followed by an analysis of the novel U registraturi and the character of Laura G. These two characters, Anna and Laura, are first analyzed through their appearance, surroundings and the analogy of their names, and then through a reading of the book The Second Sex, and a critique of the representation of women as articulated by Mary Ellmann. The basic thesis of this paper is that the characters of Anna and Laura, although they do represent a turning point in the creation of female characters in the history of literature, viewed from the perspective of 20th century feminism are still marked by stereotypes. The stereotypical construction of female characters in these novels can be attributed to the fact that the authors of the novel were men, who until the 20th century were almost the only ones able to engage in literary writing and the creation of female characters.