Kate Hewitt left an interesting comment in response to my last post:
the bottom line seems, to me, to be that we want the characters in our fiction to reflect our own values and when they don't we find it frustrating or disappointing [...] every author is going to bring his or her own value system to his/her books, whether intentional or not. It's up to the reader to decide if he/she can accept the morals/values of the book he/she is reading and then enjoy it as fiction.Her comment raises so many questions about the values of romance readers, romance authors and of the genre itself, that I decided it was time to create a new space in which to discuss them.
The Romance Genre
According to Pamela Regis, every romance includes some degree of judgement about the society which forms the background to the lovers' struggle:
Near the beginning of the novel, the society that the heroine and hero will confront in their courtship is defined for the reader. This society is in some way flawed; it may be incomplete, superannuated, or corrupt. It always oppresses the hero and heroine. (31)Although the societies depicted in romances vary, one thing which does not is the high value placed on romantic love. According to the Romance Writers of America, it is essential for a romance to have
An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.What, though, does "emotional justice" mean? Some romance protagonists are "rewarded with [...] unconditional love" even though they have behaved towards other people in ways that they themselves later acknowledge to have been unjust.
Romance Authors
Kate, in her initial comment, states that "every author is going to bring his or her own value system to his/her books, whether intentional or not" and Jo Beverley has written that "An honest writer must include her own philosophies in her work" (33). Readers should, however, be careful before making assumptions about authors' values. After all, characters may express opinions which are not shared by the author. In addition, Leslie Wainger's advice to romance authors raises the possibility that some romance authors are writing with their readers' (real or imagined) values in mind:
basic expectations that every romance reader shares and that you, as an author, implicitly promise to fulfill are simple and leave you a lot of room for creativity:Wainger's advice does seem somewhat problematic. Readers' relationship with heroines may be rather more varied than Wainger seems to be suggesting here and she doesn't define what "ethical" behaviour actually is. I wonder if she realised that there isn't a single standard of "ethical" behaviour and decided it would be far too difficult to try to define a single standard which would be acceptable to all readers.
A sympathetic heroine: The heroine is the key to every romance. The reader’s sense of identification with the heroine draws the reader into the book and keeps her reading. Your heroine needs to be sympathetic – strong without being hard, vulnerable without being weak, intelligent, ethical, interesting, capable (but not perfect), beautiful (but not unreal) – in short, a surrogate for your reader as she wants to see herself. [...]
A strong, irresistible hero: Both your heroine and your reader need to fall in love with the hero. He has to be strong without being overbearing (or borderline abusive), yet vulnerable enough to need the heroine; as intelligent, ethical, and capable as she is; fascinating; and, of course, good-looking (and good in bed, even if the reader never sees his skills). (19, emphasis added)
Romance Readers
Bridget Fowler has observed that
most readers do not confuse the genre with realism. Moreover, the development of the romance suggests its readers are not passive. Its paradises change, along with women's new material experiences and their greater exposure to the arenas of modernity. Such readers are still active and critical thinkers who repudiate writers too removed from their own image of society. [...] I have shown that in Scotland certain writers are repudiated. For example, the link between Barbara Cartland's world-view and that of Thatcherism is both transparent to popular readers and the cause of Cartland's low reputation. The world of the dominant class she depicts is either seen as too alien to their experience or as the source of the poverty and social problems that harass them. (174)Readers, then, distinguish between fiction and reality. We know that the societies depicted in romances are not real and it seems to me that many romance readers tolerate a great deal which does not "reflect our own values." One reason for this may be the distance between fiction and reality. Another may be that romances tend to be written in a way which "draws the reader into the book" and encourages the reader to sympathise with the characters. Readers may also feel that the emotional benefits they derive from elements such as a high level of conflict, sexual tension and an "Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending" are sufficient to outweigh the discomfort felt when characters don't "reflect our own values." Or we may in fact read partly in order to encounter new perspectives, and different values.
Robin, responding to Kate, says that while she
cannot speak for other readers, [...] I definitely am not looking for characters to reflect my own values. In fact, I often love most those characters whose values are very different from my own. Discussing SEP's Ain't She Sweet with people this past week always brings this up for me, because Sugar Beth is a character I could not relate to *personally* but loved and rooted for and wanted to see her happy. In fact, SEP is one of those authors whose books alternately delight and horrify me, but whose skills as a storyteller and writer can take me places I might not otherwise want to go. And what a delightful experience it is to be taken to those new places, even when they're not places I'd ever want to go in real life.Clearly, though, some readers do have "hot buttons" which will stop them reading a book, and some of those "hot button" issues may relate to "values."
So, do you want the characters in romance novels to reflect your values? How often do they reflect your values? How much deviation from your values are you willing to tolerate? And what aspects of a novel are likely to increase your tolerance for characters who don't share your values?
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- Beverley, Jo. "An Honorable Profession: The Romance Writer and Her Characters." North American Romance Writers. Ed. Kay Mussell and Johanna Tuñón. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow P., 1999. 32-36.
- Fowler, Bridget. The Alienated Reader: Women and Romantic Literature in the Twentieth Century. Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.
- Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P., 2003.
- Wainger, Leslie. Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004.
I think this is really interesting from the perspective of an author and as a reader. I'm a voracious reader of romance and have a strong preference for historical or paranormal/supernatural romantic genres over contemporary. I believe that this is because transposing the romance and characters to an 'other world' setting enables me to suspend disbelief more effectively. Having that alternate setting allows me to stretch what I find tolerable and perhaps be less judgmental. Having said that, despite the 'other world' aspect of historical romance, I have a definite preference for heroines with whom I can identify. Perhaps the fact they are in another time/alternate reality means that they can do things which I would think were unlikely or unacceptable in a contemporary setting but make sense in the value-system of their world. I can identify with their values, because I understand the otherness of their world.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast I found many of the contemporary romances I tried in my teens and twenties off-putting because they were placed within the setting of my world, and I often found the behavior of the characters unlikely or incomprehensible. My suspicion is that many of the books I was trying were written in the 70s and 80s and the female characters probably WERE outmoded. Even though I have read and enjoyed authors such as Marian Keyes since, I still struggle with this and am much quicker to pick holes in characters who are supposed to be contemporary to me.
For me as a reader it is important to be able to identify with the values of the characters in the books I read. They might not behave in the way I do, but they perhaps behave in a way I can understand and empathise with when placed in the context of their world.
About a year ago, I also started writing and I find that the same applies. Many of my characters have splinters of my own values, or explore debates/tensions I have within my own beliefs. I'm reminded of the film 'Inception', which has a dream-world setting. All the minor characters are projections of your own unconscious. Perhaps the same is true for the romance author.
Well, I think you know this is a subject very close to my heart. And it came up again yesterday in a Twitter discussion I was having about The Marriage Bed by Laura Lee Gurhke.
ReplyDeleteI think there are very complex things going on between author and reader as regards the society or value system we see emerging in a particular story.
As you've identified, there is often an interweaving between character/setting values and author values. Sometimes, as I'm reading, I have a very strong sense that it is the author's values that are being expressed. There is a degree to which this is an expression of honesty, in the Jo Beverley sense you mentioned, however, this can cross into having a hectoring/lecturing feel such that, even if you agree with the values in question, it disrupts the flow of story/narrative and affects the reading experience.
As to the values themselves, I tend to find that I can live with a certain degree of "value dissonance" between my values and the value system in the novel. Where I tend to have problems is either where the society in question depicts a plethora of attitudes that bother me (Cartland-world would defintely fall into this category) or there is a particular incident that is so at odds with my views that it hits that "hot button" you've mentioned. A good example, for me, is LaVyrle Spencer's Morning Glory in which the otherwise very nice hero has murdered a whore. The multi-layered justifications for his actions, far from soothing me, actually added to my discomfort and the complete lack of any sense of contrition from him at all bothered me deeply. Had the exact same story been executed slightly differently (e.g. a scene in which he remembered the events with any sense of remorse for taking a life, rather feeling sorry for himself of having the live the consequences of his actions) this could have transformed that book for me. So it seems to me that there might be a 'tipping point' at which the 'hits' the reader's own values have taken make the whole thing fall for that reader.
Fascinating issues, Laura.
ReplyDeleteFirst, in spite of the received wisdom, I don't think that the reader necessarily has to identify with the heroine. I don't. I always observe the heroine, rather than imagine myself in her position. To me, the heroine has to have a believable character, but she does not have to have the same values as I do. For example, I can engage with and admire a heroine who is guided by overtly Christian beliefs (which I do not share), as long as she seems interesting, sincere and consistent as a person. Basically, I simply have to like the heroine. I like lots of people who are not in the least bit like me. I have no patience with heroines whom I actively dislike, whose characters would repel me in real life.
Secondly, I think there are interesting things to be learnt from the fact that British readers are usually quite easily able to enjoy fiction set in contemporary American culture, and our cultures really are very different in many ways. If the setting and the characters seem realistic and consistent, then I find them interesting for the ways in which they are unlike the world and the people I know, as well as the ways in which they are like my world.
And perhaps this is why I demand a high degree of realism. I am profoundly fascinated by the ways in which all humans are alike, and the ways in which our cultures make us different. What I cannot stand is false information, being misled about things that are significantly different in reality from the way they are depicted in a novel. Not the occasional improbability, or the simplified, ritual Happy Ever After, or the odd coincidence or exaggeration, but total fantasy masquerading as contemporary (or historical) real life.
Really interesting topic!
ReplyDeleteI think if quizzed, most readers might say that they don't expect characters to necessarily share their values -- within certain bounds and hot buttons. We do want to be transported and "meet" new and interesting characters through the experience. And readers for the most part can separate. But then we get into a nice little gray area which I think is not exclusive, yet is particular to romance reading.
I think the deeply internal and intimate nature of the characters depicted in a romance -- more so than any other genre -- take us into a zone where the lines blur. Suddenly, we're no longer reading and thinking "this author didn't depict this in a satisfactory way", but we are thinking "Bryony shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done that!!" Therefore, our objection to the characters' actions becomes highly personalized.
I use an example from Not Quite a Husband since your mention of Thomas was what brought me to her. I remember one review of the book which had the complaint that Bryony shouldn't have forgiven Leo so easily. Well...does that mean that the characterization of Bryony was insufficient, or just that the reader, as a fellow woman, wouldn't see herself forgiving him in this situation. The same way we look at our girlfriends and say, man, why doesn't she dump that loser? :) The cases might be inseparable and speak ultimately to the reader's enjoyment of the book regardless.
But then the question is: Did the author then succeed?
Was the execution so vivid and real that the reader internalized the character so much that their values got superimposed? Or did the author fail in their intimate depiction of the character, so that the actions aren't acceptable because there are missing pieces of the puzzle?
I think my question is actually unfair as there is no answer -- chicken or the egg style. But no answer, doesn't mean there should be no debate!
Correction: It was Jessica of ReadReactReview that got me onto Sherry Thomas. Sorry! Your blogs look totally different -- don't know why I got confused. geesh
ReplyDeleteAlso I realized I didn't answer the question. I was discussing with another reader about this and I think for me it's a matter of a high degree of trust for the author in general and the decisions they make. Not in saying that their values are the correct ones -- but that they've made the right choices for their characters and stories. Until they lose that trust due to poor execution/bad writing or I sense that I'm being manipulated heavy hand, then I usually can go along.
Keeping in mind that all interpretation is necessarily subjective, I do think it's possible to distinguish between "I don't like X" and "X doesn't work," although the distinction often relies on what follows the implicit "because" at the end of both sentiments.
ReplyDeleteThe complicating factor in genre Romance, IMO, is the function of the "hero" and "heroine" as something beyond even the formalistic role of "protagonist." What does it mean when we talk of the main characters in a Romance as "heroic"? Is it about moral rectitude, redeemability, personality, a combination thereof, or something else entirely?
And when the question of heroism intersects with the question of verisimilitude, things can get very muddy, indeed. This is why when I read book reviews or engage in book discussion, I like it when people explain their views, even the most subjective ones, with details from the books in question. That way I get a sense of how someone makes those determinations and I can better understand how they are evaluating the genre and individual books.
For example, even though I understand that it's a perfectly valid reader response, it still makes me crazy when someone says, 'I hated X; it/she/he was not romantic,' especially when it's the primary basis for a low grade in a review. That tells me nothing about *why* a book failed to meet the reader's expectations for a genre entry, even though "romantic" is, on the face of it, a stated reason.
One of the reasons I don't find that explanation particularly meaningful comes down to the distinction I was trying to draw earlier. For example, I can think of many things in Romance that are not personally romantic to me. However, if I can be made to believe that they are romantically successful to the romantic partners, that's often enough for me.
Where I get into trouble as a reader is where you have something that I find unromantic AND unbelievable. For example, I have a difficult time believing that a bullying or abusive hero will give the heroine an HEA. In that context, it takes an awful lot for me, as a reader, for the novel to convince me that the romantic ending is successful and believable. This is one of my "tipping points," as Tumperkin put it. Because I have a strong aversion to emotional and physical abuse, my bar is likely set higher for a hero who exhibits these traits (and I understand that judgment is itself subjective).
This is where I think I go back to my "reader consent" argument -- that is, the "fantasy" of the story depends on the extent to which the reader consents on behalf of the characters. Which, of course, is highly subjective.
That said, I do think we can introduce more objectivity into discussions of these subjective judgments by more thoughtfully explaining the logic behind them. Because even if we don't agree with how others are interpreting a book, if we know how conclusions are being drawn, we can at least understand where others are coming from and engage in debate about those conclusions without so much mutual suspicion and miscommunication.
"Suddenly, we're no longer reading and thinking "this author didn't depict this in a satisfactory way", but we are thinking "Bryony shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done that!!" Therefore, our objection to the characters' actions becomes highly personalized."
ReplyDeleteI think this is the key -- that the reading of a romance is emotional not cerebral. We can't help our emotional reaction to elements of a story, and if they're negative, they're also difficult to put aside so we can continue to read the story.
And, as pointed out, it's usually not an action that affects us most profoundly, but a reaction. Taking out anger on an innocent might seem awful, but then a blankness toward the fact that it was wrong really turns us off.
And that's where author values come in. If the author thinks it's okay for an angry person to smash someone else's things, then she won't feel a need to deal with that in the book and the reader who really objects to that kind of selfish destruction (like me) won't be able to get past it.
Another angle on this is the reaction of those around. Perhaps the friends of the above smasher are cheering and approving, in which case the world of the book becomes unpleasant as a whole to someone like me.
So as I see it it's all about personal and societal reaction and whether that syncs with the reader's reactions to what's going on.
Take a situation from one of my books -- when Lucien hits Beth in An Unwilling Bride, which can still stir controversy 20 years on.
Some are particularly bothered by the blow, and it certainly bothered me, but are completely unforgiving. No second chances, for Lucien or me!
Some are deeply upset that Beth forgives him "too easily." And there my values separate from those readers. Beth is a rational woman and she acts out of a well-founded belief that she was partly responsible and it won't happen again. Drawing it out, demanding extra contrition etc would seem to me to be unpleasantly manipulative, and make me think less of her.
My values, the reader's values. Both valid.
As I always say, a book is ultimately a cooperative creation of the author and reader, and every reader's creation is valid. Just sometimes puzzling to one or other part of the partnership.
Jo
"Perhaps the fact they are in another time/alternate reality means that they can do things which I would think were unlikely or unacceptable in a contemporary setting but make sense in the value-system of their world."
ReplyDeleteYes, I think that explains perfectly why I might feel relatively at ease with something in a historical or paranormal romance which I would find difficult to accept in a contemporary.
That said, if there seemed to be a pattern in an author's work, or in the sub-genre, it might raise questions in my mind about why the author(s) kept choosing to focus on that aspect of the past/the paranormal world. For example, Barbara Cartland wrote historical romances so it's not surprising that her heroines are virgins. However, the emphasis she places on their purity, and the way she describes that purity in religious language, seems to owe a lot to her own spiritual beliefs.
"it seems to me that there might be a 'tipping point' at which the 'hits' the reader's own values have taken make the whole thing fall for that reader"
I like the "tipping point" metaphor as complement to the "hot button" metaphor because it seems to me that there are some things which will instantly make a reader put down a book/throw it at the wall/feel revulsion. And then there are other things which can accumulate and gradually cause the reader to feel alienated from what they're reading.
"What I cannot stand is false information, being misled about things that are significantly different in reality from the way they are depicted in a novel."
ReplyDeleteLauren Willig's posted at History Hoydens about her early reading of Jean Plaidy's novels and how the people she read about
weren’t remote historical characters to me; they were friends, neighbors, near relations. I knew their most intimate secrets—or assumed I did. As a pre-teen, the border line between research and imagination was still unclear to me and I took everything I read as the expression of an absolute and objective truth.
It seems to me that there can be a sense of betrayal when a reader has to reassess the level of "truth" in a novel. Different novels ask one to suspend one's disbelief at different heights and sometimes a reader may be mistaken about the level at which their disbelief should be suspended.
If one thinks a novel asks for a low suspension of disbelief, and then suddenly the characters' actions require the bar to have been set higher, there's often a painful crash as the novel collides with the bar.
The complicating factor in genre Romance, IMO, is the function of the "hero" and "heroine" as something beyond even the formalistic role of "protagonist." What does it mean when we talk of the main characters in a Romance as "heroic"? Is it about moral rectitude, redeemability, personality, a combination thereof, or something else entirely?
ReplyDeleteDespite what Wainger says about both heroes and heroines having to be ethical, I do have the impression that there tends to be a bit of a double standard in the genre. For example, there aren't many heroines who are "rakes" or who target an innocent person as a way of getting revenge on a third party but this sort of behaviour is really quite common among heroes.
One thing that can be said about a lot of both romance heroes and romance heroines is that they're heroic in what Northrop Frye would have labelled a "high mimetic" way: they have "authority, passions, and powers of expression far greater than ours [...]. This is the hero of the high mimetic mode, of most epic and tragedy" (34).
I have no firm evidence for this, but my suspicion is that when a protagonist is high mimetic they feel "larger than life" and readers often judge them by slightly different standards than they would judge a more ordinary protagonist. Certainly "beta" heroes tend to be both more ordinary and less prone to the rakish/obnoxious behaviour which a "high mimetic" alpha hero would probably be free to indulge in without serious risk of condemnation from the reader. My suspicion is that, as with a historical or paranormal context, a "larger than life" protagonist demands and receives greater leeway when it comes to being judged against the reader's own values. So maybe both values and disbelief are suspended on that bar which readers can place higher or lower depending on the degree of realism?
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Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. 1957. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000.
"I think this is the key -- that the reading of a romance is emotional not cerebral. We can't help our emotional reaction to elements of a story, and if they're negative, they're also difficult to put aside so we can continue to read the story."
ReplyDeleteYes, I think you and Jeannie are highlighting something very important; the emotional connection that the reader has with the characters. I think it can be personal experiences as much as, or more than, personal values that turn something into a "hot button" for a particular reader.
I'm not sure, though, that this happens with romance "more so than any other genre." I remember being deeply affected by many of the works of literature I was obliged to read at secondary school. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't have read them, precisely because they hit buttons I would have preferred not to have had hit, but they definitely did hit those buttons even though they weren't romances.
This post and comments (and the one before) are fascinating. I am reading Eliza Haywood's Love in Excess (1719) with my History of the Novel class right now. It is in some ways like modern genre romance (a best-seller, and aimed to be, written by a woman likely for a female audience, relies on conventions of "romance"). But also unlike: the "hero" is marked as heroic in some recognizable ways (courageous, desirable, charming) but also behaves in some highly unethical ways (e.g. trying to seduce his ward, and he's married) which the narrative more or less excuses because love is overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteWe've spent a lot of time talking about how if you bring the expectations of a modern novel reader--psychologically "round" characters with plausible motivations, for instance, to the text you'll be really frustrated. I'm not sure how many of my students have read some romance (some, I think, and I said I had) but we also talked about how our expectation that the hero would be "heroic" in the sense of someone we could admire is thwarted (and that's true of pretty much all the characters). So this post was really helpful for me in thinking about that.
I don't know that I think reading a romance is more emotional and less cerebral (you can read anything either way, IMO), but I do think that romance typically invites us to "root for" the characters and to do that, we may need to see them as basically decent or as redeemed--what hero is a rake at novel's end, for instance? Whether we're able to do that depends a lot on the writer's skill, but also on the reader's views. I've admired books where I really didn't share the characters' values, but I don't know that I've ever loved one (cerebrally I accept it, emotionally reject it, I guess).
I think some similarity – or at least compatibility - of values with the protagonist(s) is necessary for the process of “identification”, in the sense that Cawelti uses the term in Adventure, Mystery, and Romance.
ReplyDeleteCawelti writes: “All stories [both “high brow” mimetic literature and the formulaic genre fiction that is the focus of his analysis] involve some kind of identification, for, unless we are able to relate our feelings and experiences to those of the characters in fiction, much of the emotional effect will be lost. In mimetic literature, identification is a complex phenomenon. Because mimetic fictions aim at the representation of actions that will confront us with reality, it is necessary for writers to make us recognize our involvement in characters whose fates reveal the uncertainties, limitations, and unresolvable mysteries of the real world. We must learn to recognize and accept our relationship to characters, motives, and situations we would not ordinarily choose to imagine ourselves as involved in or threatened by… The process of identification in a mimetic fiction involves both my recognition of the differences between myself and the characters and my often reluctant but rather total involvement in their actions. I have at once a detached view and a disturbingly full sympathy and understanding.
Because of its escapist thrust, formulaic literature creates a very different sort of identification between audience and protagonists. Its purpose is not to make me confront motives and experiences in myself that I might prefer to ignore, but to take me out of myself by confirming an idealized self-image. Thus, the protagonists of formulaic literature are typically better or more fortunate in some ways than ourselves. They are heroes who have the strength and courage to overcome great dangers, lovers who find perfectly suited partners, inquirers of exceptional brilliance who discover hidden truths or good, sympathetic people whose difficulties are resolved by some superior figure. The art of formulaic character creation requires the establishment of some direct bond between us and a superior figure while undercutting or eliminating any aspects of the story that threaten our ability to share enjoyably in the triumphs or narrow escapes of the protagonists. Several means have developed for accomplishing this purpose. By giving narrative emphasis to a constant flow of action, the writer avoids the necessity of exploring character with any degree of complexity. Second, the use of stereotyped characters reflecting the audience’s conventional views of life and society also aids the purpose of escapism. Formulaic literature is generally characterized by a simple and emotionally charged style that encourages immediate involvement in a character’s actions without much sense of complex irony or psychological subtlety…
-Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance. Univ of Chicago Press, 1976. 18-19
[The bolding added is mine, to highlight a few points I thought particularly relevant to this discussion.]
"By giving narrative emphasis to a constant flow of action, the writer avoids the necessity of exploring character with any degree of complexity. Second, the use of stereotyped characters reflecting the audience’s conventional views of life and society also aids the purpose of escapism. Formulaic literature is generally characterized by a simple and emotionally charged style that encourages immediate involvement in a character’s actions without much sense of complex irony or psychological subtlety… "
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with Cawelti, and this is from 1976, but it seems odd to me. First, I'd guess he's really talking about action/adventure novels, and perhaps the lesser sorts, with lots of bangs and chases, 2D heroes, and gals just there as plot props, and quite likely as corpses in the end.
A good romance does not swamp emotional exploration with action, and the action that is in the book is likely to reveal character and emotion by presenting physical and ethical challenges to characters unused to high drama and violent action. Non-violent challenges will have the same function.
"Conflict" is a particularly important part of a romance novel, (being barriers and challenges rather than fights.) Primarily, in my view at least, its primary function is to test the characters bonds and prove the possibility of a strong relationship at the end.
In the process, however, it must confront the characters with meaningful tests, and yes sometimes challenge the reader's moral assumptions as she travels with the characters and emotionally engages with the situations.
This might be more powerful than the more explicit moral explorations of other forms. If, for example, a "character like me" must kill to save others, I am bound to enter that more closely, am I not?
Jo
"I'd guess he's really talking about action/adventure novels, and perhaps the lesser sorts, with lots of bangs and chases, 2D heroes, and gals just there as plot props, and quite likely as corpses in the end."
ReplyDeleteDespite the title of Adventure, Mystery, and Romance I think you're right in supposing that Cawelti didn't particularly have romance in mind when he wrote that. In his introduction he states that
I have chosen to deal rather intensively with a few major formulas - various forms of detective and crime stories, the western, and the best-selling social melodrama. I have not attempted to present an overall account of popular formulas or genres - the reader will quickly note such obvious omissions as all types of comedy and romance, the horror story, science-fiction, and many other important areas of popular narrative and drama. (2)
He does have one small section about romance in his book but it's less than two pages long. In it he suggests that
The moral fantasy of the romance is that of love triumphant and permanent, overcoming all obstacles and difficulties. (41-42)
I first learned of Cawelti’s Adventure, Mystery, and Romance when it was used as a source with relevance to popular formulaic romance in the October 13, 2007 Teach Me Tonight contribution by Laura Vivanco. (I'm grateful for that introduction to the book, Laura!) Although it dates back to 1976, I recommend the book as valuable reading, as it treats formulaic literature respectfully and as an area worthy of serious study. Cawelti, in his introduction to the book, explains “the organizing principle of this book is theoretical: I have tried to define the major analytical problems that confront us when we seek to inquire more fully into the nature and significance of formulaic literature.”
ReplyDeleteThose with an interest only in formulaic romance fiction may not find a great deal of interest in the latter portion of the book. The later chapters - with more detailed, intensive analysis of specific genres - focus on only a few major formulas – various forms of detective and crime stories, the western, and the best-selling social melodrama.
However, I would encourage those interested in the serious study of formulaic romance to read at least the Introduction and Chapters One and Two. (The section I quoted on "identification" comes from Chapter One: The Study of Literary Formulas). I would contend that Cawelti presents these first few chapters of his book as relevant to the study of all formulaic literature, popular formulaic romance included. For example, in the section I quoted earlier, Cawelti includes the example of “lovers who find perfectly suited partners”, an indication to me he was specifically indicating the inclusion of romance in this part of his analysis.
While you may not always agree that Cawelti's conclusions are relevant specifically to formulaic romance, I think many of TMT's readers will still find much of the book very worth-while reading.
"I'm grateful for that introduction to the book, Laura!"
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad to have introduced you to it, then.
I do agree with you that his book is still "valuable reading, as it treats formulaic literature respectfully and as an area worthy of serious study." I just think it's worth bearing in mind that he didn't write a lot about romance.
You're right, of course, to point out that he uses
the example of “lovers who find perfectly suited partners”, an indication to me he was specifically indicating the inclusion of romance in this part of his analysis.
I suppose my response to the passage you quoted is rather coloured by the fact that I don't feel that romance heroines represent my "idealized self-image" (18). Rather, his description of how one reads "mimetic fiction" seems to describe how I read romances:
The process of identification in a mimetic fiction involves both my recognition of the differences between myself and the characters and my often reluctant but rather total involvement in their actions. I have at once a detached view and a disturbingly full sympathy and understanding. (18)
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about the double standards in the genre. The adored slutty hero is one of my least favorites. ;D
I've been trying to think through your comments about heroism in a mimetic sense, and I feel like there is so much there to consider and discuss, but I can only respond at a very basic level right now.
My initial response was that I wish we'd talk more about mimetic functions of Rom protags when we discuss, say, historical romance, because it's been my experience that much that ISN'T historically accurate or authentic is touted as such, and behavior justified thusly.
Rape, for example. Whether or not women were viewed differently throughout history, the contexts of those views are very complex, and I would never say that rape was a common spousal behavior, thus it's acceptable in hist rom and not contemp. And yet I've seen that argument made quite often. Ditto with the Great Virginity Fetish.
Some of these things are merely genre norms, and I wish we could start talking about them in that way, without trying to legitimate them in historical or cultural terms.
Of course that opens up a ton of questions around what genre norms are, how they function, how flexible they are, how intrinsic to the genre, the relationship between form and ideology, etc.
Like you, I am not looking for an "idealized self-image" in protags, and I've always been a bit wary of these kinds of arguments, especially when applied to female produced and directed fiction (all those morality tracts, I suppose). I find more interesting the issue you raise around how if characters are larger than life, we expect them to act within the boundaries of a particular genre.
Can, for example, a pub represent "the life experiences of today's youg woman" as pure genre code? To me that description suggests a certain dimension of realism, but maybe for many M&B readers, it will be immediately decoded to imply "in the M&B mythology of Romance heroines."
I've been trying to think through your comments about heroism in a mimetic sense, and I feel like there is so much there to consider and discuss
ReplyDeleteI've been working on Frye's ideas about the mimetic modes and trying to relate them to the romance genre, but I hadn't previously thought about the implications which we're drawing out in this thread, so this has got me thinking in new directions. As you say, there seems to be "so much there to consider and discuss."
It seems to me that when Cawelti states that "the protagonists of formulaic literature are typically better or more fortunate in some ways than ourselves" (18) in Frye's terms he's saying that the protagonists are in the high mimetic mode:
superior in degree to other men but not to his natural environment, the hero is a leader. He has authority, passions, and power of expression far greater than ours [...]. This is the hero of the high mimetic mode, of most epic and tragedy, and is primarily the kind of hero that Aristotle had in mind. (Frye 33-34)
Cawelti refers to literary fiction as "mimetic": "mimetic fictions aim at the representation of actions that will confront us with reality" (18).
That, it seems to me, matches up with what Frye would call the low mimetic mode:
If superior neither to other men nor to his environment, the hero is one of us: we respond to a sense of his common humanity, and demand from the poet the same canons of probability that we find in our own experience. (34)
So, Frye doesn't distinguish between popular and literary fiction but between modes. Cawelti, on the other hand, is trying to distinguish between popular and literary fiction, and it seems to me that he does so on the basis that the popular is high mimetic and the literary is low mimetic.
I prefer Frye's classification system because it seems to me that the features which Cawelti ascribes to the popular have, in fact, been features of "high" literature too, it's just that they'd fallen out of favour in "high" literature at the time when Cawelti was writing.
I also think that although very, very many works of popular fiction are written in the high mimetic mode, it's unwise to assume that they all are. Certainly not all romances are escapist fantasies. Some seem to me to be rooted pretty firmly in reality.
Some of these things are merely genre norms, and I wish we could start talking about them in that way, without trying to legitimate them in historical or cultural terms
ReplyDeleteThat bothers me too, particularly when it's a historical period I know something about, but clearly not all romance readers have the same preferences.
I suspect that
(a) for some readers finding out more about the reality of various historical periods is rather less important than it is for me and
(b) historical settings have sometimes been used in ways which are not dissimilar in some respects to the way that paranormal settings are used. By that I mean that they provide distance from the reader's reality and so make it easier to slip into the high mimetic mode, with heroes who have "passions, and power of expression far greater than ours."
In a high mimetic romance hero those "passions" might include near-uncontrollable feelings of sexual desire for the heroine, the ability to tell when she wishes to be forcibly seduced and the power to speak in extremely eloquent and somewhat purple prose.
If one were going to portray the historical reality in a low mimetic way, one would have to limit oneself to what is "historically accurate or authentic" rather than what makes it easier to accept a high mimetic hero.
"Some of these things are merely genre norms, and I wish we could start talking about them in that way, without trying to legitimate them in historical or cultural terms"
But then we'd have to situate the genre norms in their contemporary cultural context, which relate to our own reality. There are plenty of people who are perfectly happy to do that, but I suspect there may also be plenty of others who would feel that that kind of a discussion was a threat to their enjoyment of the fantasy because it would contaminate it with a bit too much of the very reality they're trying to escape when they pick up their high mimetic fictions.
"pure genre code?"
In many, many ways the "genre code" does seem very static. Kyra and I explored that a little in our essay for JPRS but, at the same time, one can find some evidence that changing social norms affect the "genre code." Rape is far less prevalent in the genre, for example, and so are very young and virginal heroines.
Janet W ~
ReplyDeleteRobin said, Some of these things are merely genre norms, and I wish we could start talking about them in that way, without trying to legitimate them in historical or cultural terms
Laura followed with, "That bothers me too, particularly when it's a historical period I know something about, but clearly not all romance readers have the same preferences.
I suspect that
(a) for some readers finding out more about the reality of various historical periods is rather less important than it is for me and ..."
Thank you both for going to the crux of the problem, for me. When my interpretation of characters as well as my understanding of the historical setting and mores disagrees with another reader, who is to adjudicate? So much of this discussion is quite subjective: not a bad thing at all but there's no definitive spot to get a ruling on some of these things. I always remind myself how much I enjoy the discussion itself, even if it doesn't result in a yea or nay.
Laura, you’ve just proved to me why my - reluctant – resolve to stay away from many of the blogs I was reading (if not commenting on) last year was both a good and a very bad decision. A friend directed me to the discussion here yesterday and I have spent too long a time reading through the posts and enjoying the discussion.
ReplyDeleteI’m not going to revive yesterday’s debate – except that as the background to the problem involved in assessing any work of fiction. Or indeed of writing any work of fiction. Your personal reading of the lines: 'Why on earth would I want to be a feminist?' she muttered as she slid into the seat and waited for him to close the door. 'Where's the power in that?' is just that – personal – and the fact that you found it annoying is your personal reaction, one I have no problem in seeing you express.
As both a writer of romances and an academic, I enjoy reading this blog as it throws light on the different ways the reading of romance – of any work of fiction – can be interpreted. And if there’s one thing it brings home is that, as I’ve always strongly believed, the simple words on the page – the black and white formation of letters that create a set of meanings can never again ever be quite as ‘black and white’ once they are filtered through the mind/the imagination/the beliefs of the reader whose eyes may see the same letters but whose thoughts may create a totally different interpretation of them.
So as a reader I don’t find that I ‘ want the characters in our fiction to reflect (my) own values’. That’s not what I read fiction for. I read to experience other worlds, other lives, other experiences and – yes – other values than the ones that I personally hold to. I am, however totally free to disagree with/dislike any of them and find that the author who creates these values is not one who appeals to me. What does matter for me is – as Kate Hewitt said – “ It's up to the reader to decide if he/she can accept the morals/values of the book he/she is reading “ but I would add - as presented in the world and the characters in that fiction. I don ‘t have to accept the value systems for myself but that they are the ones those characters would present in the fictional world they inhabit. And their decisions and actions are those that they would act on.
(Blogger tells me I'm going on too long so I'll complete my post in another section)
Equally, as a writer. I can only create a character and make them act in a way that I believe that person, as I have imagined them inside my head, would act/think/believe in the particular circumstances I have created in the story. As I write for Presents/Modern Romance I am well aware of the fact that some readers can find some of the behaviour and values of my characters unappealing, bullying, domineering, even abusive. And that’s where the ‘filter’ of what the reader brings to the table comes into play. This filter can mean that a set of circumstances that I have built up and which I believe justifies or explains a certain set of reactions doesn’t work for the person reading but I can only write in a way that I believe works. There is no way I can take in every individual’s personal ‘hot buttons’ and write to those requirements.
ReplyDeleteAnd there’s no way I can judge how some personal experience will lead a reader to interpret my fiction in a way that is very different from the way I originally intended it. One woman’s ‘incomparable wounded hero’ is another’s ‘unredeemed male jerk’ (both actual quotes on my novels) and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I don’t believe that I have to ‘accept’ the morals/values of any book I read in order to appreciate it. I accept that a work of fiction is telling me a story in which the values of the fictional characters are just that - fiction. Reading and understanding does not mean I will go out and act on those values. But as a writer, I may put my characters into a situation in which their values are tested and they are pushed into situations where they react in ways that are a response to the intensity of emotion they feel. And yes, I bring my own moral value system to the writing of that book but the actions of the fictional creatures I have created shouldn’t be interpreted as representing that in the same way as - for example - the sexual preferences and activity they have exactly reflect mine nor – very definitely not – am I saying that these are the only ones that are ‘right’. Only that these are the ones of my particular characters in this particular situation.
oh that's wierd - the first half of my comments hasn't appeared. I had to cut my post in half as blogger told me I w as going on too long!
ReplyDeleteSo at the risk of finding the earlier post will now come back to haunt me - this was the beginning of my post!
Laura, you’ve just proved to me why my - reluctant – resolve to stay away from many of the blogs I was reading (if not commenting on) last year was both a good and a very bad decision. A friend directed me to the discussion here yesterday and I have spent too long a time reading through the posts and enjoying the discussion.
I’m not going to revive yesterday’s debate – except that as the background to the problem involved in assessing any work of fiction. Or indeed of writing any work of fiction. Your personal reading of the lines: 'Why on earth would I want to be a feminist?' she muttered as she slid into the seat and waited for him to close the door. 'Where's the power in that?' is just that – personal – and the fact that you found it annoying is your personal reaction, one I have no problem in seeing you express. As both a writer of romances and an academic, I enjoy reading this blog as it throws light on the different ways the reading of romance – of any work of fiction – can be interpreted. And if there’s one thing it brings home is that, as I’ve always strongly believed, the simple words on the page – the black and white formation of letters that create a set of meanings can never again ever be quite as ‘black and white’ once they are filtered through the mind/the imagination/the beliefs of the reader whose eyes may see the same letters but whose thoughts may create a totally different interpretation of them.
So as a reader I don’t find that I ‘ want the characters in our fiction to reflect (my) own values’. That’s not what I read fiction for. I read to experience other worlds, other lives, other experiences and – yes – other values than the ones that I personally hold to. I am, however totally free to disagree with/dislike any of them and find that the author who creates these values is not one who appeals to me. What does matter for me is – as Kate Hewitt said – “ It's up to the reader to decide if he/she can accept the morals/values of the book he/she is reading “ but I would add - as presented in the world and the characters in that fiction. I don ‘t have to accept the value systems for myself but that they are the ones those characters would present in the fictional world they inhabit. And their decisions and actions are those that they would act on.
Wow, I hadn't realized my comment sparked further debate--all interesting stuff. I think most of what I'd say on the subject has already been said by others, but I just wanted to clarify my initial statement. I wasn't saying that readers will only read books that reflect *every* value of theirs, only that in general I think readers gravitate to books that broadly reflect their personal value system. And while they might move out of that comfort zone, those books might not be as enjoyable as others. As a writer, my books reflect my values--that doesn't mean my characters don't act like jerks or make mistakes or even believe things I don't believe, but the arc of the story and the way they change and grow is consistent with my own values. I don't know how any writer could do otherwise, to be honest.
ReplyDeleteSo much of this discussion is quite subjective: not a bad thing at all but there's no definitive spot to get a ruling on some of these things.
ReplyDeleteJanet, I think you've probably just summed up the joy/problem of the humanities (although to be fair, I feel obliged to point out that there's quite a bit of disagreement in the sciences too).
Kate W, I'm sorry about your comment vanishing. It was trapped in the spam filter. I've pulled it out now.
"I accept that a work of fiction is telling me a story in which the values of the fictional characters are just that - fiction. Reading and understanding does not mean I will go out and act on those values."
I find that even when I intellectually reject the values held by fictional characters, they can occasionally convince me on an emotional level that I'm wrong. I suppose it must have something to do with "The process of identification [...] [which] involves both my recognition of the differences between myself and the characters and my often reluctant but rather total involvement in their actions. I have at once a detached view and a disturbingly full sympathy and understanding" (Cawelti 18).
in general I think readers gravitate to books that broadly reflect their personal value system. And while they might move out of that comfort zone, those books might not be as enjoyable as others.
Kate (H), I suspect you may be right, but at the same time, I wonder if sometimes readers gravitate towards certain genres because of the effects they create. Horror's an obvious example of a kind of fiction which might be read for the anticipated effect it will have. I think to some extent this is also true of romance. Tumperkin once explained to me that her
view is that for many readers, it's more about the journey - the roller-coaster if you like. A story arc contains highs and lows that deliver an emotional punch to the reader. A story with a very dark hero (abusive in the real world) might deliver a much more satisfying journey for certain readers. I tend to think of the more lurid examples of this type of story as 'emotional porn'.
I'm replying late to this, but I wanted to pipe up to mention something I've been thinking about, which is the distinction between my values and pleasure. I don't read with my code of ethics at hand, making sure every character's behavior matches up, not even in a genre that can be seen as upholding its "heroes" as heroic and its "heroines" as admirable. But what gives me pleasure and what I consider moral *do* overlap. So an overbearing hero, for instance, is something I can marshal ethical objections to. But his *real*, *unforgivable* sin? Making me feel sick to my stomach, giving me the opposite of the pleasure I'm seeking in the reading experience. I know this because there are behaviors that are unethical which *don't* destroy my pleasure.
ReplyDeleteBetween values and pleasure, then, there could be: characters that give me pleasure and that I consider ethical, characters that are unethical but still pleasurable, and characters that are both unethical and cause me displeasure to experience.
And I think the crux of the issue might possibly lie here, in the messy space where values meet pleasure. The problem with 90% of Romance for me is that I think the majority of readers and writers sort things I find not only morally abhorrent but painful/displeasurable into the "pleasurable but technically immoral" category.
Which is where the historical/paranormal settings come in, because then the pleasure can be distanced from its moral context and enjoyed without trouble.
The problem isn't that I find abusive heroes immoral, it's that it makes me hurt inside to read them. And that is not the feeling I want when I'm seeking fantasy/escape/pleasure reading.
Er, the other side of this is that there are characters/stories I could find both ethical and pleasurable that I think the majority of Romance readers would reject because they're not pleasurable to them.
ReplyDeleteLike a the story of asexual biromantic lovers. Or a story with a hero who's a transvestite. (Though, seriously, how could a novel about a hero inspired by Eddie Izzard not be a sexy, clever experience?)
Heck, going into Paranormals for a minute, I could totally dig a novel featuring were!seahorses complete with male pregnancy. While the nth book about an Alpha werewolf/vampire physically and emotionally subduing a heroine as if she were a horse that needed a good breaking just makes me want to scream.
It's interesting, because I think that ethical "queer" notions are actually more likely to be rejected by publishers than heteronormative stories that naturalize rape, stalking, emotional abuse, and all their fine fancy friends.
Angel, you asked for were-seahorses? We provide were-seahorse romance.
ReplyDeleteBetween values and pleasure, then, there could be: characters that give me pleasure and that I consider ethical, characters that are unethical but still pleasurable, and characters that are both unethical and cause me displeasure to experience.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense that the emotional response and the intellectual one might differ.
Another possibility which occurs to me is that a reader's ethics may be temporarily adapted in response to what's being read. So, for example, in a paranormal romance certain behaviour may be normalised and therefore be judged "ethical" in that paranormal setting but not in the real world.
Similarly, it seems to me that sometimes characters may be classified as ethical because they are the hero/heroine and the reader sympathises with them and sees things from their perspective. In other words, if a reader accepts that a particular character is "the good guy," that may make them inclined to think that when the "good guy" kills someone, it must have been done for a good reason, whereas if the "bad guy" kills someone, the same reader will immediately classify it as murder.