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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

More Musings on the Alpha

Radway writes that
in ideal romances the hero is constructed androgynously. Although the women were clearly taken with his spectacularly masculine phallic power, in their voluntary comments and in their revealed preferences they emphasized equally that his capacity for tenderness and attentive concern was essential as well. Chodorow’s theories seemed helpful because of their capacity to explain what I thought of as the twin objects of desire underlying romance reading, that is, the desire for the nurturance represented and promised by the preoedipal mother and for the power and autonomy associated with the oedipal father. (1991: 13-14)
I’m still trying to understand why the hero who shows a capacity for ‘tenderness’ is ‘androgynous’, since this seems to me to be suggesting that a ‘masculine’ man would have a very limited emotional range. It could be that the heroes described by Radway shade into the alpha 'she-male' as described by Robin who:
finds a lot of alpha heroes bullying and condescending. Or cleverly disguised she-males, aka the alphas who drag the heroine off to their isolated mountain cabin, where they proceed to draw her a bubble bath, cook her a gourmet dinner, wash every dish *by hand*, and then empathetically anticipate her every emotional and sexual desire.
Whatever sort of alpha she was describing, though, Radway got me thinking about mothers, psychology and the alpha hero. Then, in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women one of the authors suggests that ‘the romance maps out the first segment of the journey’ that ‘Everywoman’ makes ‘from ‘virgin to mother’ (Barlow 1992: 48) and the hero represents a ‘split-off portion of the heroine’s psyche which will be reintegrated at the end of the book’ (Barlow 1992: 49). Barlow associates the masculine traits within women with the male child:
If the heroine’s primary role in the myth serves to encourage us to cope with our fears, the hero’s is to provide us with the means of facing and accepting the angry, aggressive, sexually charged components of our personality that we have been taught to associate with masculinity. From childhood, males have more outlets for their aggressions – sports, horseplay, roughhousing [...] Females, on the other hand, are instructed from childhood to control, repress, or even split off their aggressive and erotic drives. (Barlow 1992: 49-50)
So, is the hero a way for the reader to get in touch with her inner child, while the heroine, in transition from virgin to mother, represents the reader’s inner adult and (perhaps in the epilogue or a sequel where she’s a supporting character) inner parent? It’s all beginning to sound rather like transactional analysis and I’m extremely hesitant to analyse the genre this way, since I’m trained in literary criticism, not psychology. But the way the hero is described, both by Radway and in Dangerous Men did make me conclude that alpha heroes often seem rather like toddlers.

I know there are different opinions about exactly what an 'alpha' hero is, and the ways in which he differs from 'beta' and 'gamma' heroes. Some people distinguish between the true alpha and the ‘alpha jerk’, just as they distinguish between the assertive, ‘kick-ass’ heroine, and the ‘too-stupid-to-live’, ‘feisty’ heroine. But with that qualification made, when I thought about the alpha hero, as discussed in Dangerous Men, the image that came to my mind was that of a toddler. Maybe that’s because in Dangerous Men there's a lot of mention of how the alpha is 'tamed', and I've heard a lot about Dr Christopher Green’s Toddler Taming. Nonetheless, the process of the alpha hero’s development, as described by Krentz in Dangerous Men, does, it seems to me, resemble that of bringing up a child:
the heroes in the books undergo a significant change in the course of the story, often being tamed or gentled or taught to love, but they do not lose any of their [...] strength in the process. [...] The journey of the novel, many writers say, is the civilization of the male. (1992: 6)
Toddlers, like alpha heroes, can be both immensely appealing and, simultaneously, incredibly irritating. They can be extremely strong, but they don’t always know how to control their own strength. While they may behave well in a very structured environment where they know the rules (such as nursery, or, in the case of the alpha hero his group of spies, or his band of warriors), they may act out in the presence of people from whom they want an emotional response. Sometimes they behave far, far, worse with the person they love most than they would with the people with whom they interact in the structured environment. In the case of the toddler, it’s not just because the staff are strict and the parents aren't (though this is sometimes the case), but because the child wants to know that he or she will still be loved and accepted despite bad behaviour, in other words, he or she wants to know that he/she is really and truly loved unconditionally. The parent has to show the child that he or she is indeed loved unconditionally, and that there’s no need to keep testing the boundaries.

Alpha heroes sometimes remind me of toddlers, still seeking the love of their ‘mother’ and attention-seeking by throwing tantrums and acting badly. In fact, quite a few of the alpha heroes really do have ‘mother issues’, with a mother who abandoned them, or some key female figure who has somehow betrayed them. They imprint on the heroine (rather like Konrad Lorenz's ducklings, though alpha heroes are a lot pickier about who they imprint on than a duckling is) and make her the focus of their desire, much as the toddler wants the love and approval of his/her parents. But, because the alpha hero wants to know he’s loved unconditionally (and he not infrequently doubts whether he’s actually deserving of love at all) he often mistreats the heroine. The heroine, like a good mother, forgives her toddler (though she may, like all mothers, feel irritation and occasionally slap or shout back). In the end the toddler, from being a terrible, almost monstrous, chaotic creature, is ‘tamed’. Just like the alpha hero.

18 comments:

  1. You're trying to taunt me, aren't you, Laura?

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  2. No I'm not. I'll admit, though, that on the other thread I was trying to tempt you into writing a paper.

    I'm a bit worried, though, because I can't judge tone very well from one line. I hope I've not offended you by quoting from your comment about alphas. I put it in because it seemed interesting to contrast it with what Radway was saying. I wonder if the original trend that Radway spotted (of alphas caring for the heroine, for example when she's ill) has become exaggerated in some romances to the point where it creates the sort of hero you're describing, who seems to have a dual personality.

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  3. Laura, it didn't even occur to me that you'd take my comment as anything more than a reference to the paper discussion yesterday! So no, I don't care if you reference my words or argue with them or whatever.

    One thing your post made me realize, though, is that no matter what the nuances are in defining an alpha hero, at a very basic definitional level, the alpha hero and the toddler hero are mutually exclusive opposites. Maybe we just need to be honest and admit that the genre has created a Romance alpha who often bears little or no resemblance to anything in nature.

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  4. I sometimes wonder whether romance hasn't internalized Radway's arguments about it, at least to some extent. I haven't read all that many romance novels, but many of them, especially since the 1990s, boast scenes that seem to me awfully self-conscious in their deployment of the heroine who needs a break from caring for others and the nurturing (not to say maternal) hero. My favorite is probably the moment in Emma Holly's paranormal "Hunting Midnight" when Juliana, bitten by our shapeshifting, blood-drinking alpha male Ulric, flashes back to a memory of her mother teaching her to knead dough and praising how clever she is.

    Hmmm... Actually, on reflection, my favorite is probably Phin asking "Who takes care of you, Julie Ann?" But on a quick glance through the novel, I can't find where he says it. Did I just make up that line?

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  5. My favorite is probably the moment in Emma Holly's paranormal "Hunting Midnight" when Juliana, bitten by our shapeshifting, blood-drinking alpha male Ulric, flashes back to a memory of her mother teaching her to knead dough and praising how clever she is.

    Juliana is my second favorite heroine of that series (Gillian is my most favorite and Catching Midnight one of my very favorite Holly books, period); I liked that she and Ulric were almost co-alphas in that book.

    What do you think of the scenes where the hero drinks the heroine's breast milk right after she's nursed or where, as in Lisa Valdez's Passion, the hero has sex with the heroine while she's nursing their child?

    Hmmm... Actually, on reflection, my favorite is probably Phin asking "Who takes care of you, Julie Ann?" But on a quick glance through the novel, I can't find where he says it. Did I just make up that line?

    No, I think it takes place on the dock right before Phin goes down on Sophie that first time.

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  6. Ah, there we go:

    "This is your one shot at being selfish. Let somebody take care of you for a change."

    I added the Julie Ann part, but I guess I had the gist of it.

    As for the nursing moments, I don't know them, actually! Remember, I'm still a novice at all this--albeit a chatty and opinionated one.

    Back to Beverly Jenkins--duty calls--

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  7. Maybe we just need to be honest and admit that the genre has created a Romance alpha who often bears little or no resemblance to anything in nature

    As long as I can salvage the credibility of (some of) the betas/gammas I'll willingly sacrifice the alphas. But really, I think most people do acknowledge that the extreme alphas are mythical creatures. Krentz says so herself in Dangerous Men, I think.

    I'm still a novice at all this--albeit a chatty and opinionated one I am too, especially when it comes to American romances

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  8. Romance novels are basically a woman's fantasy wrapped up between two covers, so why wouldn't many women writers create Alpha heroes who are domineering and arrogant for the first portion, then tender, protective, caring, generous, sexually attentive, giving good back rubs in the end portion? (No double entendres intended.) And, of course, they are all skilled in oral sex, having learned it at Oxford or Cambridge, I guess.

    Naturally these creatures don't exist in nature. They are all products of fantasy. Who couldn't love a guy like that? I don't think he is any realer than the heroines who are all beautiful, smart and really good people.

    I'm not sure I follow the theory of imprinting, since the imprinting on the mother is done when the child is a weak, helpless infant, who depends on her for its very life. The mother has no choice but to love the toddler even though he may really test her patience. In romance novels, the Alpha generally begins by testing the heroine's patience. It's only later that she "senses" his vulnerability. In some romances, the heroine falls in love with a weak, helpless hero, if he is injured or sick, but not often.

    Why do we question our attraction to the Alpha hero, when he is only a product of an author giving us "what every woman wants": danger, excitement, good sex and help with the dishes?

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  9. Sorry to butt in again, but is there such a thing as an "alpha female"? Would we characterize one as the typical vampire slayer/vampire queen who kicks butt and takes names until she meets her match? Or is the "alpha heroine" the woman who is so good and so innocent, yet strong-willed, that she can tame the "alpha male" with her sexy, yet motherly love?

    If, as I posited before, the romance novel is a woman's fantasy, what does that say about our fantasies of womanhood? Does a woman have to be perfect to catch the perfect male? (Oh, for a world where a heroine never gets menstrual cramps!) In Crusie's work, the heroines can be a bit "bent" as she calls it, but never really bad. In most works of the genre, however, the heroines are usually a balance of the virgin/slut/mother archetype.

    A character I always find interesting is Jane Austen's Emma. Emma means well, but is a bit of a snob, a bit of a gossip and busybody and tends to jump to conclusions. In this book it is not the dashing, mysterious Frank Churchill who wins her heart but Mr. Knightley, whom she had previously considered (poor man!) as just-a-friend. Whereas in more modern novels the hero is usually trying to convince the heroine to be bad, in "Emma" the hero takes her to task for not being as good as she should. She has been thoughtless and selfish and should be a better person. Though not perfect, Mr. Knightly marries her anyway. He makes her want to be better. Not alpha behavior, I guess.

    Emma Holly, on the other hand, has introduced us to heroines who are more slut than virgin. Is this the alpha female we have been working toward?

    This topic occurred to me while I was reading "The Taming of the Slur" in today's New York Times, about the evolution of the term "slut." Did anyone else see that?

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  10. I'm not sure I follow the theory of imprinting, since the imprinting on the mother is done when the child is a weak, helpless infant, who depends on her for its very life. The mother has no choice but to love the toddler even though he may really test her patience. In romance novels, the Alpha generally begins by testing the heroine's patience.

    I was thinking of 'imprinting' because something happens to bond two individuals at first sight. There are plenty of romances where there's love at first sight and/or the alpha hero recognises his 'mate', or his 'soulmate' at first sight. In many of these stories, the hero and heroine often try to resist what's happening to them, but they can't, because the link between them is too strong, and in that sense they're 'weak'. Mothers don't all love their children on first sight and/or they may struggle with what motherhood entails. The responsibility of caring for someone who is dependent on one can be a very heavy one. In the case of the alphas, they often seem to be heavily emotionally dependent on the heroines, who have to emotionally 'save' them. Sometimes the heroine feels the love at first sight, and sometimes she struggles against the hero, not wanting to be responsible for 'taming' and 'gentling' him.

    Why do we question our attraction to the Alpha hero, when he is only a product of an author giving us "what every woman wants": danger, excitement, good sex and help with the dishes?

    Well, first of all, because an alpha hero isn't what every woman wants (some readers obviously prefer other types of hero - such as 'betas' and 'gammas'). And even if all women did want an alpha, wouldn't it be interesting to ask why some women want 'danger' (I can understand the attraction of the other elements)? And the amount of 'excitement' people like also varies - some like comfort and security (which, in fact, was one reason you suggested for why people read romance) whereas other people get a thrill from risk-taking.

    I can see parallels between the 'alpha male' and the femme fatale. Like the alpha, who's quite often a rake, distanced from his emotions and in control of his environment, the femme fatale is used to exercising power over others, and she doesn't tend to fall in love. I haven't seen much of her in romance, but Nicola Cornick's 'lady rake' heroine in The Wayward Widow and, to a lesser extent, Deborah Hale's heroine in Lady Lyte's Little Secret are like this. The heroine of Judith Ivory's Sleeping Beauty is possibly this sort of heroine too. In both the Cornick and the Hale, the heroine is paired with a hero who is relatively inexperienced sexually, and very moral. And both of these heroines had issues with lack of love from their parents, and/or had been betrayed in the past.

    In most works of the genre, however, the heroines are usually a balance of the virgin/slut/mother archetype.

    The proportions of each of those ingredients do vary, though, and in a sense they could just be 'virginal' in that they've never had a love like this before, 'sluttish' in that they appreciate sex and 'motherly' in that they sometimes take care of others. I think there's a huge range in heroines when it comes to these three qualities and how much each heroine gets of each. The problem with making a heroine 'really bad' is that generally readers read because they want to feel identified with one or both of the hero/heroine or feel happy for them, and this sort of emotional connection isn't going to be there if the reader's horrified by how evil the characters are. It's also hard to believe that someone who's 'really bad' could feel unconditional love for someone else (though they might well feel obsession, dependency etc), so it would make the love-story aspect difficult. I would agree, though, that there does seem to be something of a double-standard if one compares how 'bad' the hero can be and still be acceptable, with how 'bad' the heroine can be. That said, heroines nowadays are usually all 'bad' compared to the extremely innocent Cartland-type heroines, so I think the gap is narrowing.

    Emma Holly, on the other hand, has introduced us to heroines who are more slut than virgin. Is this the alpha female we have been working toward?

    It would seem to be one sort of heroine that romance has been working towards, but just as there are different types of heroes (including many who are so complex that it's hard to categorise them), I think romance also has a range of different sorts of heroines. I think this has always been the case - as you say, Austen's Emma is not like Anne or Elizabeth - but at different periods different types of heroines have been in the majority.

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  11. Just to clarify, I put "what every woman wants" in quotes to indicate it is a cliché and more worthy of the marketing dept.

    If it is true that women want different things, then what is it with the alpha male strutting through so many romance novels? I prefer a Beta male myself, but if it isn't Alpha males that spark women's fantasies, then publishers wouldn't print so many of them. I don't think women want to be in danger, but many like men who are "dangerous." The whole Vampire trend in today's romances depends on these dangerous and seductive fantasies. A killer who won't kill us -- that's the fantasy, right?

    In reality, Alpha males are very difficult to live with, as the high divorce rate among cops, firemen and military personnel attest to. It takes a "certain woman."

    As you say, there is a double standard in how bad men can be perceived as being and how bad women can be. I don't suggest women characters should be evil, but they are human. I do like Judith Ivory's heroines because they tend to be less "good." I can't remember why the heroine in "Bliss" gave up her virginity, but at the time it seemed like the kind of mixed-up logic that a confused girl might use.

    Another of my recent favorite heroines is Grace from Patricia Gaffney's "Crooked Hearts," a con-artist (though it seems without any avarice).

    The point I was trying to pursue is that, as these books are written largely for women, and by women, is the goodness of the heroine part of our fantasies about how women should act and behave? Would a Crusie heroine ever lose her temper at her cat who was irritating her and throw a shoe at it, or would she be too good a person? It's a universal question, I suppose: if you're a woman, do you have to be Good in order to get a rich, handsome man to love you? (Beauty has nothing to do with it, of course. :)

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  12. Let me also throw in my admiration for the heroine in Laura Kinsale's "For My Lady's Heart." Definitely an Alpha female. The hero falls in love with her beauty, then learns she is not a loveable gal. Though he cannot stand her, he also can't leave her. He begins by loving the ideal of her, then takes the hard road of coming to love her as she really is. The relationship was not at all comforting, but very exciting.

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  13. Would a Crusie heroine ever lose her temper at her cat who was irritating her and throw a shoe at it, or would she be too good a person? It's a universal question, I suppose: if you're a woman, do you have to be Good in order to get a rich, handsome man to love you?

    I don't think any of Crusie's heroines lose their tempers at their pets. I can't recall reading any romances at all where a heroine slaps or shouts at a child. But then again, do romance heroes hurt pets or children? I don't think so. (There may be exceptions, but I've not come across them.) I think you mentioned in your original comments about Crusie, that pets and children are often used to establish the intrinsic goodness of the hero/heroine. That's not always the case, I think, since sometimes the pets and children are characters in their own right, but even so, I think the hero or heroine's 'badness' isn't likely to extend to harming children or animals.

    Heroines don't have to be perfect, but they probably do have to be basically good, I think. I've yet to read about an evil heroine. Then again, I've not read about any completely evil heroes. Like I said, I think they get a lot more leeway than heroines, in general, but even a hero like the Duke of Avon in Heyer's These Old Shades turns out to have something good in him.

    If the heroine's completely evil and/or incapable of loving anyone, and yet someone loves her unconditionally, I'm really not sure the story would be a romance. That's almost what happens in Great Expectations, because Estella is definitely not 'good'. And the story didn't originally have a happy ending.

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  14. Let me also throw in my admiration for the heroine in Laura Kinsale's "For My Lady's Heart." Definitely an Alpha female. The hero falls in love with her beauty, then learns she is not a loveable gal. Though he cannot stand her, he also can't leave her. He begins by loving the ideal of her, then takes the hard road of coming to love her as she really is. The relationship was not at all comforting, but very exciting.

    I totally agree with you about Melanthe being an alpha-type heroine, and Ruck having to get past his own idealistic view of her, but I don't agree that she was unloveable or that Ruck didn't like her. I think she confuses him, at first because she is trying to save herself from Gian and then because she is trying to deny her feelings for Ruck and then because she is trying to save Ruck from Gian. So she does things that seem to be cruel (i.e. drugs him so she can 'imprison' him and save his life), but are intended to save Ruck and keep Melanthe's secrets. As she tells Ruck late in the book (in a scene that actually made me cry, and I RARELY cry at any book, movie, tv commercial, etc.) Gian killed everyone she had ever loved, including her husband and her two year old daughter. She has no trust in her own beauty, and up until the last few pages of the book is convinced that she will have to submit to Gian and his plans for her political and personal exploitation.

    Melanthe is consequently terrified of being vulnerable, and yet she feels vulnerable from the very first page of the book, trying to outmaneuver the various men who want to use and abuse her, her position as princess seemingly valuable only in inverse correlation to her powerlessnes as a woman. Yet she falls in love with Ruck and marries him, freeing him from the terrible guilt he has about his first wife, explaining to Ruck that she is long dead and admitting that she (Melanthe) paid someone to drug so she would not experience pain at her death. She didn't want to tell Ruck her fate, because she knew it would be painful to him, but she also realized that he had terrible guilt over feeling he had failed a woman who did not want to be married to Ruck but rather to the church.

    I think it's true that Ruck's patience and commitment to his promised service (his honor) provide an incredibly soft place for Melanthe to fall, a place she still doesn't fully trust even at the very end of the novel, but I see her as an incredibly admirable heroine, actually, and as an incredibly complex woman, compelled to acts of kindness and mercy that she is afraid of because she thinks they will reveal her as weak and vulnerable. And yet she cannot help but try to do the right thing by Ruck and, as we come to find out, by his first wife, whom she did not even know (I loved her account of how she simply didn't want to be bothered by her screams of pain, after that incredible story of the priests' corruption and contempt for women, and I think it demonstrates Melanthe's character perfectly). Melanthe understands the violence that men are capable of all too well, what with her constant monitoring by Alegretto, as well as Lancaster's advances on her and Gian's ubiquitous perfidy.

    FWIW, I also view Ruck as an alpha hero, because my own definition of an alpha male is that of a natural leader, one who only has to show his teeth, so to speak, when he or those he loves are threatened. I think one of the things I love most about Kinsale's For My Lady's Heart is the way Ruck guides Melanthe often without her knowing it, especially at those moments where Melanthe tries impose her will on Ruck (like at the end where she leads with her insecurity and tries to forbid Ruck from going back to Wulfscar with that kid, but he handles her with kindness and firmness). Nothing is wasted with Ruck, no excess power is expended on any activity and no reaction beyond what is necessary. Basically I see FMLH as a book in which Ruck teaches Melanthe to trust and love again, and Melthane teaches Ruck to embrace carnal love and the position of leadership and power that is his by birth and talent.

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  15. if you're a woman, do you have to be Good in order to get a rich, handsome man to love you?

    Absolutely!

    What disturbs me most, I think, is that heroines have to be "good" in very different ways than heroes do. For heroines, the concept of "good" is tied much more to morality than it is for heroes, IMO. I think that for much Romance a hero's goodness is measured by how much he loves the heroine, while her goodness is measured by how few men she's slept with, how much she loves kids and animals and her parents, and how willing she is to sacrifice her own life ambitions for the love of the hero. Yes I'm simplifying, but I think it's a pretty unsubtle dynamic, actually.

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  16. If the heroine's completely evil and/or incapable of loving anyone, and yet someone loves her unconditionally, I'm really not sure the story would be a romance.

    I tried to be clear that I wasn't asking if heroines could be evil, just if they could be a little bitchy every blue moon and on February 29th. Of course, our heroines would never hurt a child or animal, but face it, men, children and animals can be very annoying at times and deserve a lob in their direction. The romance heroine, however, would simply sit the offender down, apologize that she hadn't been paying them enough attention and listen raptly to them for two hours until it's time for her to make dinner.

    Since I don't know many women like this, I conclude that it's largely a product of fantasy, a feminine ideal that women have created or at least perpetuated.

    Re: "For My Lady's Heart"
    Robin, you and I both know Melanthe is not the image she is trying to project, but from Ruck's point of view, she treats him like dirt. She is cold and demanding and condescending and may be using Alegretto as a sex toy. Even after she and Ruck have made love, she is still a thorny rose. However, he has been scorned by a woman before, his first wife, as you mentioned. I think he almost doesn't go after her. He loves her but she causes him a lot of anguish along the way. Luckily, she also gives him courage to take back what is rightfully his. I cried too!

    I think that for much Romance a hero's goodness is measured by how much he loves the heroine, while her goodness is measured by how few men she's slept with, how much she loves kids and animals and her parents, and how willing she is to sacrifice her own life ambitions for the love of the hero. Yes I'm simplifying, but I think it's a pretty unsubtle dynamic, actually.

    Yes, it is! It makes me wonder. I suppose it could be an internalization of the Cinderlla fairy tale. Cinderella is good and pure even though she has been treated like dirt by her stepfamily. She never tries to slip them some salmonella, even though she has access to their food source, which is what I would do if I weren't so darn nice. Goodness gets her a fairy godmother, courage gets her to the ball, having small feet wins her the prince. I think in the pre-Disney version, the sisters have their feet cut off in the end. So, everybody's happy ever after when they read that story.

    This brings me back to the comfort theory: A romance novel is a place where Good is rewarded, evil gets its comeuppance, and the hero is made to fit into the heroine, or possibly vice-versa. It appeals to our sense of rightness.

    But there's something wrong... why doesn't Snow White marry the Seven Dwarves? They protect her, they rescue her, they love her. The prince does virtually nothing and she runs away with him! All perverseness aside, it is just not an ending that pleases. It teaches us women to be kind and good, but also to be very conventional, I think.

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  17. I wasn't asking if heroines could be evil, just if they could be a little bitchy every blue moon and on February 29th.

    I think they can, but possibly this sort of heroine is rare, because of the reasons Robin outlined and because of the influence of the fairytales you mention. Maybe this is one of the appeals of chick lit? I've not read any, so I'm just going by the descriptions of it I've read, which I know is a completely unreliable way to go about drawing conclusions, but it does seem as though in chick lit heroines can get away with (and, in fact, are maybe even expected to do) things which would head a romance heroine towards 'bad' territory and which many (not all) romance readers would find a bit tricky to deal with.

    Even Austen wasn't sure that readers would love Emma, and I think romance authors who make their heroines irritable etc are taking a risk that readers won't like the book. From what I've heard/read, this doesn't seem to be a problem in chick-lit.

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  18. I think romance authors who make their heroines irritable etc are taking a risk that readers won't like the book.

    But why is that? Is it because the reader likes to identify herself with the heroine? Men read superhero comics to identify themselves with truth, justice and cool gadgets? Women read romances to identify with goodness rewarded, true love and rapturous sex? (I'm just speaking in general here -- some women do also like superhero comics.)

    The novels of MaryJanice Davidson seem to be quite popular, and some of her female characters are like nails on a chalkboard one minute, and cracking you up the next.

    In soap operas, viewers tend to really enjoy the villianess, the sly, manipulative witch who makes the good girls' lives hell, and who plays the part for years.

    In the HBO series "Big Love," I was surprised to discover most people I talked to enjoyed most the second wife, Nikki, the narrow-minded, manipulative, self-serving product of a polygamist compound.

    Not to mention that I think most actresses would rather play a Lady Macbeth or Katherine (Taming of the Shrew) or Beatrice (Much Ado about Nothing), than a Juliet or Ophelia.

    But in romance novels, generally, the heroine must be good or at least have pure motives for her misbehavior. These stories, going back centuries teach (or preach) that goodness will be rewarded. A man can't love a unvirtuous woman. Someone should be telling this to those "Girls Gone Wild" gals...

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