I think maybe we need a soundtrack for this post, so here it is. It's Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero.
In a previous post I wrote about Loretta Chase's Alistair Carsington, an acclaimed war hero. Alistair and Mirabel's thoughts on what makes a hero can perhaps be read as being somewhat metafictional:
"I am tetchy about being made out to be [a] hero," he said. [...] "Others did as much and more [...] My actions were nothing extraordinary. There were men who'd been with Wellington for years, who acted with surpassing courage and gallantry. If you knew their stories, you would understand how demented it seems to me to be singled out as the hero." [...]A romance hero becomes a hero not just because of his courage or other interesting and/or valuable qualities. He's also got to be someone about whom the romance author can make "a grand story."
"I suppose this is the price one pays for having a forceful and exciting character," she went on. "You attract the press. The newspapers made you famous, not solely because of your deeds - though you are entitled to be proud of them - but because you made a grand story." (220-221)
I think there's an extent to which, as Cawelti observes, culture affects the qualities which are thought to make a character sufficiently heroic to create "a grand story." Certainly
general plot patterns [such as "boy meets girl, boy and girl have a misunderstanding, boy gets girl"] are not necessarily limited to a specific culture or period. Instead, they seem to represent story types that, if not universal in their appeal, have certainly been popular in many different cultures at many different times. In fact, they are examples of what some scholars have called archetypes or patterns that appeal in many different cultures. [...] But in order for these patterns to work, they must be embodied in figures, settings, and situations that have appropriate meanings for the culture which produces them. One cannot write a successful adventure story about a social character type that the culture cannot conceive in heroic terms; this is why we have so few adventure stories about plumbers, janitors, or streetsweepers. It is, however, certainly not inconceivable that a culture might emerge which placed a different sort of valuation or interpretation on these tasks, in which case we might expect to see the evolution of adventure story formulas about them. (5-6)This isn't to say that each culture will only have one type of hero, but it does suggest that in certain periods, there will be noticeable "types" that exist and then, with the passing of time, either change somewhat or fall out of fashion.
Recently Maverick, posting at Romancing the Blog, said that she looks for a hero who's "richer than Croesus," "arrogant and dominating," "sometimes just this side of abusive", and, before he meets the heroine, "promiscuous." Bonnie Tyler, in the lyrics of her song states that
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight [...]
He's gotta be sure [...]
And he's gotta be larger than life
Taken to a parodic extreme, this type of strong, aggressive hero can perhaps end up as Stella Gibbons' Seth Starkadder: Standing with one arm resting upon the high mantel [...] was a tall young man whose riding-boots were splashed with mud to the thigh, and whose coarse linen shirt was open to his waist. [...] His voice had a low, throaty, animal quality, a sneering warmth that wound a velvet ribbon of sexuality over the outward coarseness of the man. (38)Mr Neck, a film producer, who wants to find "a second Clark Gable [...] I want a big, husky stiff that smells of the great outdoors, with a golden voice. I want passion. I want red blood. I don't want no sissies, see? Sissies give me a pain in the neck, and they're beginning to give the great American public a pain in the neck, too" (182) finds precisely what he's looking for in Seth:
Meriam, the hired girl, would not be in until after dinner. When she came, she would avoid his eyes, and tremble and weep.
He laughed insolently, triumphantly. Undoing another button of his shirt, he lounged out across the yard to the shed where Big Business, the bull, was imprisoned in darkness.
Laughing softly, Seth struck the door of the shed.
And as though answering the deep call of male to male, the bull uttered a loud tortured bellow that rose undefeated through the dead sky that brooded over the farm.
Seth undid yet another button, and lounged away. (42)
A silence fell. The young man stood in the warm light of the declining sun, his bare throat and boldly moulded features looking as though they were bathed in gold. His pose was easy and graceful. A superb self-confidence radiated from him, as it does from any healthy animal. [...] He looked exactly what he was, the local sexually successful bounder. (184)He's not the only possible type of hero (or attractive anti-hero), but he's certainly a very popular one. Alistair, despite his war record and his string of love affairs, isn't really that kind of a hero, but with his romantic and military reputation, his appearance (he's tall, dark-haired and has a "hawklike profile" (2)) and as a possessor of the "deep Carsington voice, which emotion - whether positive or negative - roughened into a growl" (2), it's not surprising that other people immediately think he is.1
- Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976.
- Chase, Loretta. Miss Wonderful. 2004. London: Piatkus, 2006.
- Gibbons, Stella. Cold Comfort Farm. 1932. London: Penguin, no publication date given.
The picture is of the cover of Loretta Chase's Lord Perfect. I've included it because it illustrates very nicely the way in which heroes tend to be depicted. As Kalen Hughes recently observed regarding the shirt in the Regency period:
One very important thing to note: it does not open all the way down the front (regardless of what is depicted on countless romance novel covers)! It has a partial neck-opening from the collar to about mid-chest. So the shirt had to be pulled on/off over the head.Cover artists, however, often seem to be convinced that romance heroes must resemble Seth Starkadder, with open shirt and indolent, lounging pose.
[A companion post by Kalen, on how to dress/undress a Regency lady, is available here.]
Now with soundtrack! Awesome. I love that song-- particularly Frou Frou's cover of it. Even though the Alpha therein described isn't my personal ideal, I read it with the same ironic touch as I do Paula Cole's "Where Have All The Cowboy's Gone?" and enjoy the heck out of it, even though that reading probably wasn't intended by the lyricist of "Hero" the way I think it was by Paula Cole in her song. I also like "Holding out for a Hero" as a powerful statement of female desire; the female narrator knows herself and her pleasure; she wants, damnit, and she's proud, bless her.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, a friend and I made a fanmix to an anime couple with "Holding Out for a Hero" included almost as a condemnation of the rigidity of gender roles for men, and how they hurt them: the male side of the couple was a boy who longed to be a samurai but wasn't emotionally equipped for it and was basically destroying himself in the attempt to be a traditionally warrior-like hero, and the heroine was right there, helping him do it because--as the leader of the small Japanese village he was part of the force defending--she needed him to
pretty much waste himself in the attempt to protect the larger interest's of her people. The particularly sad part was that she cared for him, but she cared for her village more.
Damn, that was a good story.
Anyway. Why am I rambling about it here? Well, I think it relates to how heroes like Alistair can occupy a seemingly traditional role as warrior but be human in ways that I don't think the Seth Starkadders or the "arrogant and dominating" heroes who are "sometimes just this side of abusive" can be. I think that a historical hero who is soldier is, in many ways, part of a class of persons who are exploited for their physical usefuless and asked to spend their life's blood in much the same way women were exploited as a reproductive class and asked to spend their life's blood for the emptire in that way (maternal morality rates were ridiculously high, after all) and, if the author focused on the ways that both the hero and heroine have been used and experienced life, not as all powerful langorous sex gods, but as individuals within systems of power, the fantasy of the hero as an impossibly rich, improbably physically powerful, emotionally undauntable force of nature the heroine can harness by "taming" him for her protection and enjoyment disappears and we discover two people who, though put upon and not able to protect themselves all the time, can join together to give each other love and support in the face of circumstances.
I suppose it just depends on which fantasy appeals more: together against the world, or hero as source of power for the heroine.
Er. If that makes sense?
Your post also makes me think about a poem by Siegfried Sassoon called "The Glory of Women":
ReplyDeleteYou love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.
You can't believe that British troops 'retire'
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses - blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
And of the last line of his "Suicide in the Trenches," which hits like a punch to the gut:
" You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go."
These both, I think, get at the imagined, romantic idea of soldiering, and then the unromantic truth. I think that characters like Alistair, and Lord Peter (I don't know if you're familiar with the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane books by Dorothy Sayers? They deal with a hero's psychological fallout from battle as well), another beloved character Alistair reminds me of in several ways, are an attempt to deal with heroes who are wounded in less mentionable ways -- not a proud scar, but a damaged brain box. "Bad nerves" that both of them are terrified and ashamed of, fearing themselves mad. Damaged in ways that, if revealed, would get them ostracized at best, not given a parade.
Those Sassoon poems are extremely powerful, as you say. I remember reading the war poets at school, and they've had a permanent effect on my thoughts about war.
ReplyDeleteI think that a historical hero who is soldier is, in many ways, part of a class of persons who are exploited for their physical usefuless and asked to spend their life's blood in much the same way women were exploited as a reproductive class and asked to spend their life's blood
Yes, that's something that came up in our discussions of Balogh's The Secret Pearl, though the hero there is very different from Alistair and his wounds seem to have been physical (what mental distress he has is due to his wife's behaviour and other people's responses to his physical impairment).
Interestingly, there's evidence to "suggest that at least 1.5 percent of women may develop chronic posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of childbirth" (from an abstract here) or, from the abstract of another, slightly more recent journal article, "Childbirth qualifies as an extreme traumatic stressor that can result in post-traumatic stress disorder. The reported prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder after childbirth ranges from 1.5% to 6%. [...] Mothers with post-traumatic stress disorder attributable to childbirth struggle to survive each day while battling terrifying nightmares and flashbacks of the birth, anger, anxiety, depression, and painful isolation from the world of motherhood."
And just as I have some concerns about the way that some depictions of heroes who are soldiers do seem to do what Sassoon is describing, i.e. "worship decorations; you believe / That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace," so I also have concerns about the ways in which some romances glorify the experience of motherhood. In both cases there's a reinforcement of traditional gender roles and a denial of the less pleasant, or even traumatic, aspects of these roles. Instead we get a glorified, very romanticised view of these things as being sexy. That may be some people's experience of childbirth/mothering and/or fighting/being a soldier, but I suspect that for many the reality is a lot more prosaic, and for a few (such as Alistair, the real soldiers who felt as Sassoon did, and the mothers with post-natal depression or PTSD) that's the complete opposite of their reality.
I suppose it just depends on which fantasy appeals more: together against the world, or hero as source of power for the heroine.
Er. If that makes sense?
That makes complete sense to me. That's the kind of thing I was thinking of when I took a look at Sternberg's theory about how different individuals have different "stories" about love. I suspect that people's personal "stories" may affect how they respond to love stories in novels.
I have read some of the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane novels, though I tended to read them for the relationship rather than for the mystery. I didn't really pick up on Lord Peter's war experiences, because I think the books I read were later in the series, but I did notice that Peter and Harriet are far, far more erudite than I will ever be.
Yes, that's something that came up in our discussions of Balogh's The Secret Pearl, though the hero there is very different from Alistair and his wounds seem to have been physical (what mental distress he has is due to his wife's behaviour and other people's responses to his physical impairment).
ReplyDeleteEek! Sorry for repeating myself there. I can be rather forgetful at times.
Interestingly, there's evidence to "suggest that at least 1.5 percent of women may develop chronic posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of childbirth" (from an abstract here) or, from the abstract of another, slightly more recent journal article, "Childbirth qualifies as an extreme traumatic stressor that can result in post-traumatic stress disorder. The reported prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder after childbirth ranges from 1.5% to 6%. [...] Mothers with post-traumatic stress disorder attributable to childbirth struggle to survive each day while battling terrifying nightmares and flashbacks of the birth, anger, anxiety, depression, and painful isolation from the world of motherhood."
I was thinking about it from the perspective of maternal death rates, but this is an aspect of it I hadn't thought of. Fascinating; it really shouldn't be surprising, considering what a often prolonged, physically extreme experience birth is. But the cliches surrounding it do cloud the issue. I'm glad that research has been done into this.
And just as I have some concerns about the way that some depictions of heroes who are soldiers do seem to do what Sassoon is describing, i.e. "worship decorations; you believe / That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace," so I also have concerns about the ways in which some romances glorify the experience of motherhood. In both cases there's a reinforcement of traditional gender roles and a denial of the less pleasant, or even traumatic, aspects of these roles. Instead we get a glorified, very romanticised view of these things as being sexy. That may be some people's experience of childbirth/mothering and/or fighting/being a soldier, but I suspect that for many the reality is a lot more prosaic, and for a few (such as Alistair, the real soldiers who felt as Sassoon did, and the mothers with post-natal depression or PTSD) that's the complete opposite of their reality.
I totally agree. Relating this back to your post, do you think that part of the reason why "grand stories" can be about soldiers, for instance, but not plumbers, is that the society has constructed the romanticized, heroic view of that particular service as a "carrot" to get people to continue marching forward into doing something that isn't really good for them? The same way that the often repeated idea of a woman being incomplete until she's experienced motherhood, a position glorified to the hilt, serves to push women towards an action that isn't necessarily in their best interest?
And, of course, if a person goes after the carrot, and finds it's not what they expected (has post-partum depression, experiences PTDS), the grand story acts as a means of silencing anyone who would dare go against what's been defined as the happy, productive "norm": a soldier can easily be cast as a coward and a traitor if he dares condemn war; a mother can be condemned for not loving her children enough, or feeling happy enough about the "holy" experience of having a child.
Interestingly, I think that the ways grand stories open up to new types of hero can relate, not to more acceptance within a society of different life paths, but to the development of new niches the society needs to be filled. For instance, it used to be that the heroes of American TV shows were doctors, lawyers, and cops. They were where it was at. The three fields, I think, share in common their necessity to society. Recently, the field has opened up to "geek" characters. They're becoming part of the grand narrative of success, I think, because of the ravenous need for technological expertise in our world, and how the development of new techologies has shaped our lives. Stories like that of Bill Gates perpetuated the idea of the geeky man as a powerful, worthwhile figure. And now there are TV shows sprining up with this sort of character featured. There's one particular show called "Numb3rs," where a geeky mathematics professor helps his police officer brother solve crime (combinging the old popular cop figure with the new geek figure). There's also the recent "Chuck," where the geeky heroe's entire worth is in his very superpowered brain, and characters like Hiro on "Heroes," who fits the mold as a man who uses a non-violent talent and is part of an ethnic group stereotyped for mathematical, computer intelligence.
Interestingly, the the role of geeky hero isn't really open to women.
I have read some of the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane novels, though I tended to read them for the relationship rather than for the mystery. I didn't really pick up on Lord Peter's war experiences, because I think the books I read were later in the series, but I did notice that Peter and Harriet are far, far more erudite than I will ever be.
ReplyDeleteI mostly read them the same way you did, actually. Except for one earlier story (The Nine Tailors, which is excellent), I just read the four books that had the two of them together. The one where Peter's PTSD is most revealed is in "Busmany's Honeymoon," the book set after their marriage. Living in close proximity to Peter as he investigates and closes a murder case, Harriet discovers more about his experience in the war, and how being responsible for the deaths of the murderers he catches stirs up his trauma. It's really moving, and there's this scene toward the end that just... Gah. It's difficult to describe how beautiful it is. I'd highly recommend it, though the murder plot contains some unfortunate hints of 1930s antisemetism from the author.
Eek! Sorry for repeating myself there. I can be rather forgetful at times.
ReplyDeleteNo, no, don't apologise! I thought it was interesting that this was an issue brought up in both novels, though in somewhat different ways. I wonder how deeply and in how many different variations the theme runs within the genre. I've just read a couple of Suzanne Brockmann's SEAL novels, for example, and there seem to be a lot of military men and fertile women. Unlike the Balogh and the Chase, however, I haven't come across anything in Brockmann to suggest any unease with the military experience (though admittedly I've only read 2 novels, which might not be representative of her entire body of work). In fact, one of the novels I read did deal with rape. It was Get Lucky and although there's a suspicion that a dangerous rapist may be a SEAL, it in fact turns out that he didn't get through the initial training. The real SEALs are all portrayed as being horrified by the reality of rape:
He shook his head. "You know, I've seen guys who were injured. I've helped patch up guys who've been in combat. I'm not squeamish, really, but knowing that someone did that to her and got pleasure from it ..." He took a deep breath and blew it out hard. "I'm feeling a little ... sick."
He'd gone completely pale beneath his tan. Oh boy, unless she did something fast, the big tough warrior was going to keel over in a dead faint. (108-109)
Compare that to this, from Jo Beverley's The Dragon's Bride, in which the hero thinks about his military past:
He'd almost raped a woman once.
He'd been with a group of officers drinking in a tavern in a Spanish village. It had been not long after battle [...]. Blood had been running hot still, and they all wanted a woman.
Some of the women were willing, but a few were not, and their protests and attempts to escape has seemed amusing. Exciting, even.
He could look back at it now as if from the outside and wonder how he could have behaved like that, but he also remembered feeling a godlike ecstasy. That the women were his warrior's due. (93)
As for whether I think that part of the reason why "grand stories" can be about soldiers, for instance, but not plumbers, is that the society has constructed the romanticized, heroic view of that particular service as a "carrot" to get people to continue marching forward into doing something that isn't really good for them?
I think that it's tied up with ideas about patriotism, duty, courage as well as with ideas about virility and the use of physical force. Getting back to the Brockmann, the hero says that
I know there's a lot wrong with this country, but there's also a lot right. I believe in America. And I joined the Navy - the SEAL teams in particular - because I wanted to give something back. I wanted to be a part of making sure we remained the land of the free and the home of the brave. (158)
There are, of course, a lot of different opinions about nationalism/patriotism. For example, according to structuralist theorists of international relations
different classes (e.g. workers and bourgeoisie) have different interests: the ruling classes make a profit using exploited workers in their and other countries, and as such have an interest in protecting the status quo, whereas it is in the workers' interest to achieve a fair level of pay (which would undermine profits).
The central contention of Structuralism is that in order to understand international politics one must understand international economic relations. Since the interests of core groups –whether in core or peripheral states– are the same (they are the classes which the economic system privileges), as are those of the periphery, it is not surprising that the patterns of economic relations consistently favour elites and undermine working classes. This attention to processes (rather than agents)in turn implies that states cannot be ‘unified actors’ capable of representing the collective interest. Since the state represents the interests of one specific group (the bourgeoisie) its decision-making cannot be ‘collectively rational’. (Teti)
Re what you said about the often repeated idea of a woman being incomplete until she's experienced motherhood, a position glorified to the hilt, serves to push women towards an action that isn't necessarily in their best interest
It's interesting that there does seem to be a link between ideologies which extol the need to fight for the father/motherland and policies which also encourage breeding for the nation. For example, under the Nazis
Activities for the girls in the BDM and Jungmaedelbund also centered on ideology and physical fitness, but emphasized the preparation of girls for their future roles as wives and mothers. The Nazi motto for women was "Kinder, Kirche, Kueche" (children, church, kitchen). Corresponding to these Nazi ideas on the position of women in society, girls learned domestic skills. Their groups nevertheless wore uniforms, were structured in a military-style hierarchy, and, short of the paramilitary training, engaged in many of the same activities as their male counterparts. (Pagaard)
and in Stalin's USSR:
Motherhood in Russia became institutionalized again as the foremost function of a woman, a sacrifice to be performed on the altar of the state planned economy. "We will not remain in debt, we will provide Russia with strong, good children"- thus the state forcefully encouraged women to show their appreciation for their glorified, glorious female fate. The state ordered "Mother's Victory," "Mother-Heroine," and "Motherhood Medal" were just tactical moves in the battle to create and ideologically support the "necessary" gender models. (Sinelnikov)
Beverley, Jo. The Dragon's Bride. New York: Signet, 2001.
Brockmann, Suzanne. Get Lucky. Richmond, Surrey: Silhouette, 2000.
That comment got rather long and messy. I don't seem to have done a lot more than plonked down a few quotes and left big gaps in between, without a lot of analysis. But it's really a very, very complicated topic, and analysing all the ideological nuances of it (both in terms of gender and politics) would take a long, long time.
ReplyDeleteThe connections between male gender roles, the military, rape/exploitation of women and female gender roles is obviously something that does get examined in romance novels, and in different ways depending on which novel you look at.
the role of geeky hero isn't really open to women.
Romance does have the "bluestocking" heroine, though. Sometimes they're actually quite geeky (though often it just means they like reading books and wear glasses).