The aim of this master´s thesis was to depict the historical development of female characters in the Croatian novel of the 19th century. On the basis of the relevant corpus of the novels: Zlatarovo zlato by August Šenoa, Olga i Lina by Eugen Kumičić, U registraturi by Ante Kovačić, Melita by Josip Eugen Tomić, Posljednji Stipančići by Vjenceslav Novak and Plein air written by Jagoda Truhelka, we have proved the development of the characters in the terms of literary and semantic construct. Through the analysis of the female characters in the previously mentioned novels, we have drawn attention to the making of their semantic label according to the theoretic postulates of P. Hamon. The semantic label expanded and complemented itself simultaneously with the development of the Croatian novel. It is important to emphasise the opulent collection of characters of synonymous groups, which point at the prolific use of standard characters and „femme fatale“, „home angels“ type of characters. The theoretical propositions of V. Jouve have served for the depiction of the development of the reader´s perception of a character, simultaneous with the development of characterization; from standard figures to individual characters. The growth of female characters is the ˝mirror˝ of the evolution of the Croatian novel of the second half of the 19th century. Dominant standard characters have given their place to individual characters, and in that way have opened the door for modern streams in Croatian literature.