Romance novels have remained one of literature’s most influential, moving, and popular pieces of work. Characterized by its sultry love scenes and descriptive imagery, romance novels have captured the interest of millions of readers, especially women. The increasing popularity of such books is evident by the rising sales of New York Time bestselling romance novels, such the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, centered on the sexual and passionate relationships between characters destined to be together. From reading these novels, a person’s deepest desires of romance seem to come alive, leaving no minor detail untouched. Every kiss, intimate thought, and lover’s quarrel ever fantasized is shared in the novel so that readers can feel as though they, too, are experiencing the same emotions as the characters involved. Although initially meant to provide a pleasurable reading experience and touch upon personal fantasies, romance novels have inadvertently changed how readers view romance and intimacy. With the increasing appeal towards the erotic nature and descriptive imagery commonly found in romance novels, society has come to set unrealistic expectations towards romance and courtship.
As more readers turn to the allure of romance novels, these books continued to gain increasing publicity as well criticism. Romance novels have become a top contender in the book industry, accounting “for more than 40 percent of all mass paperback sales” (Stanley). Known for its intense love scenes, high sexual tension between characters, and dramatic scenarios, these novels have embodied the idealized image of “hot romance.” Love within romance novels is often seen as desperate, sexually charged, and primal. Romance novels have become synonymous with the ...
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With the dramatic and erotic nature of romance novels, readers have slowly become disillusioned about the aspects of love and all that it entails. This type of façade presented by romance novels only adds to the amount of discontent toward intimacy that many readers already face. A simple first date s are no longer enough to fulfill a person’s newfound need for a passionate encounter since it does not guarantee a night of steamy sex like in the novels. Authors of romance novels have captured their readers’ deepest desires and translate them onto paper and in the process inadvertently transformed the concept of love and intimacy into a fairytale-like impression. As the popularity of romance novels continues to rise, it can be expected that the sultry and highly dramatized notion of romance will continue to thrive in the minds of many avid romance readers.
Ana-Mauríne Lara’s Erzulie’s Skirt positions the female body as the scene where lives are interconnected across history and as a dissertation of the human condition. Her protagonists, Micaela and Miriam, tell a story of love, struggle, and survival that echoes the historical significance of slavery and the Caribbean middle passage across time and space. Divided into several sections based on time and location, one particular period in Lara’s novel connects Micaela and Miriam’s experiences most closely with slavery as a whole. After a voyage across the Mona Strait as an attempt to escape from the conditions in the Dominican Republic, they find themselves captured, trapped in a brothel, and forced into prostitution. Many parallels can be drawn to interpret Lara’s use of the brothel as a metaphor for the slave ships used to travel across the original Middle Passage, including the comparable use of people as commodities, the specific imagery and language Lara uses, the historical narrative presented at the beginning of each section, and the larger themes in which identities were simultaneously stripped by oppression and also preserved within the context of community and spirituality.
When thinking about romantic relationships, whether in the movies, media or your own relationship what characteristics come to mind? The topic we will discuss in this presentation attends to the romantic relationships within interpersonal communication.
Many hearts are drawn to history's greatest love stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, and Helen and Paris to name a few. One could argue that humanity’s way of finding happiness is to seek love. Pure, unadulterated love is one of the hardest feelings to acquire, but when one does, they’d do anything to keep it. Through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and his characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, readers discover that this innate desire to be accepted and loved is both our most fatal flaw and our greatest virtue.
Whether or not we know it, we as people are very picky, and opinionative. In everyday life as humans, we pick and choose things based on preferred criteria. Based on the features of the world around us we have become biased on the things, that do, and do not meet our criteria. Being the opinionative people we are, we set criterion for even the literature we read. Just as the world around us, books have unique characteristics that we either enjoy or could care less for. In the following paragraphs I will evaluate the stories “Blowing up on the spot” and “Virgo” and will compare them to what I feel they need. I will provide my own set of criteria for the short stories “Blowing up on the spot” and “Virgo” stating my likes and dislikes for the two stories and explain why I felt
In Dante’s Inferno, Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the protagonists’ relationships with their companions becomes an essential subplot within each text. Their relationships are crucial in order to complete their journey and in some cases complete each other. In addition, there are many characteristics in each text that are unrealistic representations of life. For instance, the environment of hell the Inferno, Don Quixote’s fictional world, and the instant marriages in Pride and Prejudice are all things that are not typically seen in real life. These unrealistic characteristics affect how each relationship develops, however, these factors do not take away from the significance of each relationship. In each text, the lucrative ambitions of the characters are initially the motive of many relationships rather than the desire for true companionship. A major part of the relationships development is how the characters’ companionships transition from ones that are based on individual ambitions to ones that are built on the desire for intimate relationships.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.
Yet this text should be simply enjoyed as a love story – as an entertaining narrative.
When reading a novel or watching a movie, the audience often looks for a guiding light; a character that steps up to take the lead when all hope is lost. It is not uncommon for that beacon of hope to be a complete stereotype, all too often, the hero of the day is a strong, virile, ruggedly handsome man, but what if he was not? What if he was just an average man, or not even a man at all, but a woman or a child? When reading fiction, the imagination is allowed to run wild, painting vivid pictures interwoven with personal life experiences, relatable to the characters in the novels and to one’s own life experiences. The most memorable content of both The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks, leaves a lasting impression due to strong lead characters, their resolve to survive, no matter what obstacles may wind up in their paths, and the simple truth that they are human and flawed, but still resilient and willing to push forward as an example to others, both in the novel and in the target audience.
Eliza Haywood is a visionary. In her set of love letters, Love Letters on All Occasions, Haywood distinctly uses select words, such as metaphors, to subconsciously drive home the message to the reader. Whether it be re-enforcing the relationship between the two writers, or rather undercutting it, the reader understands their relationship more fully thanks to Haywood’s choice words. In Haywood’s collection Love Letters on All Occasions from her novel Fantomina and Other Works, two letters in particular, “Letter XXV” and “Letter XXVII”, Haywood’s use of metaphors and select word choices help to reinforce the sentiment between the writers to the reader.
Kennedy, X. J., & Gioia, D. (2010). Literature an introduction to fiction, poetry, drama and
Radway, Janice. 1987. "Reading Reading the Romance." In Studies in Culture: An Introductory Reader, ed. Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan. London: Arnold, 1997, pp. 62-79.
Today, romance is one of the most popular genres to watch on television. Unlike most, romance is a genre where the plot revolves around the love between two main characters as they experience the highs and lows of love. “Common themes that revolve around romantic movies are kissing, love at first sight, tragic love, destructive love, and sentimental love” (Taylor). These themes appear in many historical films and the pattern still continues in modern films as well. Watching romantic movies has a giant negative influence on the viewer's analysis of what love and relationships should really be like. These films give the wrong impression of reality when it comes to dating, marriage, having children, and even how to manage a relationship in the first place. Even though romantic movies are commonly watched, there are many effects on personal real-life relationships after watching these types of films.
It’s hard to name a movie or book that doesn’t ending the main character finding romance. Like the hunger games. Were Katniss Everdeen survives the games, overthrows the capital. But despite everything going on in the book, like war, starvation, and many deaths, the author still manages to make a large portion of the story about her love triangle. Maybe this is the reason a lot of people feel incomplete without another person in their life. Because despite how chaotic, stressful, or fulfilled someone’s life may seem; it just doesn’t feel complete without love the problem with this is it could drive someone into an abusive or unhealthy relationship, because they think something is better than nothing. Stephanie Spielmann, a researcher from the University of Toronto, noticed this. So she conducted a survey with 153 participants. She wanted to find out if fear of loneliness was a common occurrence, so she gave them all a survey. Out of all of them,
After watching “The Notebook” for the six hundredth time, with tears streaming down her face, a girl can finally declare it as being her favorite movie, and maybe even deem it as the best production ever created. The cliché motives of the woman always seem to involve love and a knight in shining armor. Naturally, every woman dreams about Mr. Right, and falling head over heels in love. This is why females are so vulnerable to passionate films. “My heart melted when I saw him kiss her like that.” Stereotyped as the hopeless romantics, girls live to love and be loved. Girls want relationships. Girls enjoy corny love movies. This is somewhat of an escape route for the girls, knowing that in reality, the average guy isn’t interested in a relationship, or falling in love. But for the sake of women, in the hours of our mourning, why not take advantage of the blockbusters while their...
Szymborska, Wislawa. “True Love.” Making Arguments about Literature: A Compact Guide And Anthology. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. 725-726.