Anastasia Rose Steele is the female protagonist of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. She is the primary love interest of Christian Grey, with whom she finds true love. 

Biography

Early Life

Ana's biological father, Franklin A. Lambert, died from an accident during Marine combat training the day after her birth. Her mother's second husband, Ray Steele, is the man Ana considers her "real" father. Ray taught Ana several practical skills, including self-defense, gun safety, and using tools.

Ana lived with her mother, Carla Wilks, in Las Vegas during her mother's third marriage to Stephen Morton. Ana eventually moved back to Montesano, WA to live with her stepfather Ray, on account of not getting along well with her mother's third husband.

Adult Life

At the start of the trilogy, Ana is a senior at Washington State University Vancouver, majoring in English Literature. She lives with her best friend, Kate Kavanagh.

Personality

Ana is shown to be a stubborn but shy and kind-hearted person. Ana loves books (particularly British Literature) and is studious, maintaining a 4.0 GPA in college. She tends to be highly insecure about her appearance, and considers herself a "misfit" at the start of the trilogy, preferring to keep to herself. She is also a virgin before meeting Christian.

Appearance

Anastasia describes herself as a pale, brown-haired young woman with blue eyes too big for her face. She is pretty but not overly pretty, and shown to be rather insecure about being slim, pale, and scruffy. She usually wears jeans and only owns one skirt at the start of the series. She classifies herself as a "t-shirt and converse shoes" type of girl. Ana also appears to have very little fashion sense as seen in the bonus material told from Christian's perspective when he is revolted by her mismatched clothes for his interview. Because she is immensely shy, she blushes easily, which Christian finds alluring.

In the bonus material of Fifty Shades Freed, Christian noted her "haze" of long, dark chestnut-colored hair and her innocent, powder-blue eyes (in some instances, baby-blue colored). Ana has a small frame and a delicate profile, upturned nose, and soft full lips. She has a nice body and is slender and petite, as Christian towers over her, and she can easily curl up into his lap. 

Fifty Shades of Grey

Upon her first meeting with the famous Christian Grey, Ana finds herself utterly attracted to him. She then begins to grow closer to him over time, but soon learns there is a darker side to Christian Grey. She learns that he has a double life; he is heavily involved with the BDSM lifestyle in the privacy of his Escala penthouse and Ana is offered a shocking proposition from him. Christian wants her to become his next Submissive. He provides Ana with a contract that outlines her role as a submissive, his role as a dominant, rules and limits.

Anastasia is reluctant about entering such a dark and sexual world considering she has no experience with sex, but soon finds herself unable to refuse the offer. After getting a taste of just how painful Christian's proclivities could be, Ana finds herself in over her head and ends the relationship.

Fifty Shades Darker

After the disastrous end of her relationship with Christian, Ana is heartbroken by her decision to leave Christian. She claims that the pain of not being with him is worse than the physical pain that caused her to break up with him. Christian and Ana are unable to deny their feelings for each other, and the two reunite.

Ana begins working at Seattle Independent Publishing (SIP) as a personal assistant to Jack Hyde. Christian secretly purchases the company, much to Ana's chagrin. But when Jack sexually harasses and tries to assault Ana, Christian has him fired.

Christian, desperate to keep Ana in his life, wrestles with his inner demons, and Ana struggles to create a life that fits with that of Christan's without sacrificing her own identity.

During their time as a couple, Ana is stalked and threatened by Christian's former submisive Leila Williams. Leila, who was suffering a mental breakdown, was obsessed with finding out what Ana had that made Christian love her. Despite Christian's reassurances to the contrary, Ana is still insecure about not being able to meet Christian's sexual needs. Fearing their relationship is over because of how he acted around Lelia when she was found, seeing that he will always want control and cannot live without it. At this moment, Christian breaks down begging Ana to still be with him and never leave him again. He asks her to marry him, but she tells him that she needs to think about her answer. After thinking that Chrisitan has died in his helicopter, seeing that she couldn't live without him and that she truly sees that Christian loves her, inside a flower covered room, he asks her to marry him again which she says yes.

Fifty Shades Freed

Ana and Christian can no longer deny their feelings for one another and they soon marry. Having their honeymoon around Europe, returning home created problems when Ana refuses to change her surname at work to Grey. Ana is promoted to Editor at SIP and Christian intends to gift the publishing company to Ana as a wedding present.

Ana accidentally becomes pregnant with their first child, Theodore Raymond Grey, after she fails to take her birth control over a period of time. Christian walks out on Ana for the evening. Believing their marriage is nearly at its end, they argue about the baby. When Ana is contacted by Jack Hyde telling her that he had kidnapped Mia Grey and is holding her for ransom, Ana must lie to Christian that she doesn't love him anymore and that she is leaving him and taking five million dollars to start a new life. After he realizes that Ana wasn't leaving him and that she only lied to save Mia from death, he saves her and Mia from Jack Hyde and their relationship is stronger than ever.

In the Epilogue of the series, Ana is pregnant with their second child, Phoebe Grey. She has successfully taken over SIP and has increased its profitability by branching out into ebooks.