The history of the romance novel remains lengthy, hotly disputed and obstinately convoluted. This short and thus glaringly incomplete summary will focus on the central works that inspired romance novels, one societal trend that helped the romance novel evolve and gain popularity, and the genre’s emergence into the modern era with the help of Harlequin and Mills & Boon. Regis notes that the romance novel was born of, but not limited to, five notable literary works: Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage (1860), and E. M. Forster’s Room with a View (1908) (55). These works, now universally recognized as examples of literary fiction, …show more content…
Prior to the late nineteenth century, English women were forced to give all of her property holdings to her husband as a portion of her dowry upon marriage. This meant that single women, apart from not being able to vote, held more equitable societal standing to men than married women. In 1870 however, English lawmakers passed the Married Women's Property Act, which gave women rights over any income she earned on her own accord, and with an additional amendment in 1882, gave women authority over all aspects of her property (“Marriage: Property and Children”). This balance of power in English law gave way to marriage as a product of love providing a mutually beneficial relationship, as opposed to gaining status, property, or wealth: “...by the time the romance novel assumes prominence in English literature, love is the primary reason that people marry” (Regis 57). The implementation of the law gave way to the romanticizing of romance. This gave way to works like A Room with a View, featuring a heroine of decisive and unrelenting agency, as opposed to Richardson’s Pamela, (which according to Regis is the first bestselling novel centred around a courtship) featuring a fragile maid who accepts a marriage proposal from her “master” after he repeatedly attempted to rape her (55). Beginning with the twentieth century, marriage no longer meant women losing their agency …show more content…
First noteworthy authors on the scene, includes Georgette Heyer- who popularized the Regency subgenre (or romance novels that involve the royal British family)- and Mary Stewart- who popularized the suspense subgenre (Regis 108). By the late twentieth century, major publishers like Canadian publisher Harlequin and the British Mills & Boon monopolized on the genre and began to promote their novels on a larger scale. In 1971, Harlequin brought the genre to the forefront through selling the readily consumable novels in supermarkets and department stores across North America, often giving away books for free in hopes of ensnaring loyal customers (“Growth of Harlequin Romance”). Allowing anyone near a grocery store, even in the most desolate corners of the continent, to have access to the
On a personal note, in researching a paper on marriage and divorce a few semesters ago, I found that in the early Victorian era (1935-1901), a woman entering marriage had almost no rights. All her property automatically became her husband's. Even if she had her own land, her husband received the income from it. A husband had the right to lock up his wife. If he beat her, she had no legal redress. The law mostly removed itself from marital relations. Married women were put into the same category as lunatics, idiots, outlaws and children, and treated as such.
Within the nineteenth century, women lacked many rights; specifically, the rights that protect them as individuals and the rights that allowed them to live by their own means. Evidently, the promise of marriage was used to manipulate women, marriage also took away the self sustenance of women, and when separated from their husbands, women resorted to some form of prostitution to survive. Within Margaret Atwood 's "Alias Grace," the shortfalls of marriage faced by the fictional women accurately represent the actual social issues of Ontario during the 1800 's.
Women were confronted by many social obligation in the late nineteenth century. Women were living lives that reflected their social rank. They were expected to be economically dependent and legally inferior. No matter what class women were in, men were seen as the ones who go to work and make the money. That way, the women would have to be dependent since they were not able to go to work and make a good salary. No matter what class a woman was in, she could own property in her own name. When a woman became married she " lost control of any property she owned, inherited, or earned" ( Kagan et al. 569). A woman's legal identity was given to her husband.
Romance novels have been a place where women have been allowed to fantasize about the perfect and the ideal life. The novels are usually based on super sexy women who are only missing one thing in their life, the perfect man. The hero is also sexy, self-assured, and single minded in their pursuit of the leading woman. In current times, the romance novel has allowed women to step out of heteronormative behavior and explore their sexuality, where anything goes and their actions are perfectly acceptable by their partners.
The Romantic period had a formative experience on the Brontes. In order to examine this formative experience, we must suppose first that the Bronte sisters had been exposed to many Dark-romantic/Gothic writings that had shaped their world-views and influenced their literary products. We will need to take a look, thus, at some of the Gothic-romantic works which certainly could have impacted the different ways in which the Bronte sisters chiseled their literary characters and created their fictional worlds.
Before her marriage, a woman was allowed to own properties, run businesses, enter contracts, file lawsuits, be charged with crimes and keep her own earnings. However, once married, all of her prior rights became invalid as her legal identity merged with her husband’s. The husband would have control over all properties she had owned before and any she would gain afterwards. The only way for women to keep their property ownership intact was to stay single. However, to maintain such status was nearly impossible. In the early 19th century, almost all jobs and professions excluded women-employment. This left women who wished to stay single with only their personal and familiar weal...
Since the beginning, there have always been designated or suggested roles for men and women to abide by. Regardless of the morality and fairness of these roles, they have always been the norm of society and until the 19th century, women's rights were never really addressed as an issue and it was not until mid to late 19th century did women's right snowball into a formidable force to be reckoned with. Between the late 1800's to the mid 1900's, 3 different writers wrote about similar yet different examples of how marriage roles were and in these works, "Trifles", "A Doll House," and "Story of an Hour," the inherent oppression of marriage, the forbidden joy of independence, and false appearances are the dominant themes expressed. Even though the men aren't constantly chauvinistic, the three literature pieces are exemplary of the emotional and physical oppression that men kept women in the past centuries and how some women had to fight for their lives to escape.
Harman, Claire. Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World. 1st ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010. Print.
Perkins George, Barbara. The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Through the use of literary devices, Pride and Prejudice reveals Jane Austen’s attitude towards the novel’s theme of true love through the actions of the suitors; the process of courtship in the 1800s articulates characterization, foreshadowing, and irony. The novel opens with the line, “it is a truth acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of wife,” (Austen 1) which foreshadows the conflict of finding a significant other . During the Victorian age, men and women courted others of the same education, wealth, and social status; it was considered uncommon for someone to marry beneath them or to marry for love. Jane Austen uses Elizabeth Bennett’s encounters with different characters of varying social statuses to criticize the traditional class system; she illustrates a revolutionary idea that marriage should be based on love. In the resolution of the plot, Austen demonstrates the perfect qualities in a marriage; she incorporates Aristotle's philosophy of friendship to prove the validity of the having an affectionate relationship.
...ane Austen. Harlow: Longman Literature Guides [series], 1988. Craik, W. A. The Development of Jane Austen's comic art: Emma: Jane Austen's mature comic art. London: Audio Learning, 1978. Sound recording; 1 cassette; 2-track. mono. Gard, Roger, [1936- ]. Jane Austen, Emma and Persuasion. Harmondsworth : Penguin, Penguin masterstudies [series], 1985. Jefferson, D. W. (Douglas William), [1912- ]. Jane Austen's Emma: a landmark in English fiction. London: Chatto and Windus for Sussex University Press, Text and context [series], 1977. Lauritzen, Monica. Jane Austen's Emma on television: a study of a BBC classic serial. Goteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Gothenburg studies in English, 48 [series], 1981. Sabiston, Elizabeth Jean, [1937- ]. The Prison of Womanhood: four provincial heroines in nineteenth-century fiction. London : Macmillan, 1987.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator and her husband John can be seen as strong representations of the effects society’s stereotypical gender roles as the dominant male and submissive female have within a marriage. Because John’s wife takes on the role as the submissive female, John essentially controlled all aspects of his wife’s life, resulting in the failure of the couple to properly communicate and understand each other. The story is intended to revolve around late 19th century America, however it still occurs today. Most marriages still follow the traditional gender stereotypes, potentially resulting in a majority of couples to uphold an unhealthy relationship or file for divorce. By comparing the “The yellow wallpaper” with the article “Eroticizing Inequality in the United States: The Consequences and Determinants of Traditional Gender Role Adherence in Intimate Relationships”, the similarities between the 19th century and 21st century marriage injustice can further be examined. If more couples were able to separate the power between the male and female, America would have less unhappy marriages and divorces.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
As well as The Scarlet Letter, another moving novel was published in this era, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. The theme of this story is “restrictions do not determine one’s character, that love conquers all”, it is, after all, referred to as the “romance novel”. The two words of the title have different meaning, but tie in together at the end. Pride is having a high opinion of one’s own worth or importance, while prejudice is making judgements about others which aren’t based on facts or experience. In the beginning, this novel was first titles “First Impressions”, then the narrator describes how the prejudices and the first impressions of the main character change throughout the
Not only Nora Roberts but many other Authors and people alike believe that romance novels may give women and men alike false expectations about their relationships and love life are supposed to be like. Some women have the wrong idea of romance novels and assume that its just “a bunch of bed hopping hopping going on in between the covers of the...