One of the things that has always fascinated and disturbed me about genre Romance is the tendency to have heroines removed from any social or family network as a prerequisite to finding True Love. On one level I understand this, because genre Romance is descended from Classical Comedy, which often featured a young couple pitted against a hypocritical, outdated social structure, represented, perhaps, by repressive parents or evil relatives. The triumph of the couple, and their subsequent marriage, was an allegory, not necessarily of love, but of legitimate v. illegitimate social authority, and the protagonists were often prototypes of a new, better society. Genre Romance has built on that model, tying the ultimate marriage of the couple to both the triumph of love and the modeling of appropriate social authority. In genre Romance, the couple is a symbol of romantic love, and in turn, romantic love is the paradigm upon which an “ideal” family – and by extension, an ideal society – is built.
So how is it that this ideal so often necessitates the social and familial isolation of the heroine? I notice this especially in paranormals, in part because those human women who get involved with non-human males often have to live in a somewhat isolated physical space, and also because it would be darn difficult to integrate some of these non-human realms with the human ones. I get that, and sometimes it works for me. After all, think of all those orphaned heroines in historical Romance (the difference, for example, between Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice). And I realize that for some readers the heroine having no social or familial obligations translates into the lack of related burdens and an easier, more satisfying fantasy. But there’s also something that bothers me about having these women rely so completely for their happiness on either the hero or the connections the hero provides.
Thinking back to Jane Eyre, her isolation doesn’t seem so odd, in part because we can so easily accept her status as an orphan, and also, perhaps, because Rochester has a solitary character, as well, despite the fact that he is much more connected and can access society at any time. Essentially, though, I don’t think it’s so difficult to see the novel as a love story between two somewhat isolated characters that create their own community in opposition to the ugliness they both experienced in familial relationships before meeting and falling in love. But if you transplanted Jane and Rochester to modern-day suburbia, would it be so easy to accept Jane’s virtual isolation as normal? Yet that’s basically what we have to do when we real JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood books, for example. Ward tries to deal with this in a number of ways, from having the heroine of the first novel absorb her best human friend into the Brotherhood to establishing a community ethic for the mated females. But still, these women are very much isolated from normal human social networks, and they don’t seem to mind because they are finally so happy as mated females to the Brotherhood.
And that’s the emotional payoff, of course, and perhaps the reason we don’t necessarily take the heroine’s isolation to heart. She was unhappy before and now she’s happy; who wants to question what seems like the very premise of the Romance novel, the hero and heroine’s HEA. But I don’t think that looking more closely at the way the heroine’s choice is structured necessitates questioning the genre’s raison d’etre. After all, the author is in control of the world he or she creates, and not all authors choose to isolate their heroines. And while it’s true that those heroines who often have extended families, for example, also have extended family troubles, they also have extended networks of relationships that theoretically, at least, create a net underneath the heroine rather than a bunch of empty space through which she might fall unnoticed if not for the hero’s love and protection. I think that’s one of the reasons I love Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series so much, even though it’s not technically Romance; Harris has intertwined the human and paranormal worlds in her novels, such that the themes of isolation tend to play against themes of community, with neither state idealized. We can see, very clearly, the sacrifices Sookie would have to make if she wedded herself to a vampire, for example, and we are forced to measure them as she does.
Is it really no big deal to have one’s day become night, to be cut off from one’s human relatives, to reside by choice in a community facing danger every day, to have one’s whole life circumscribed by one individual? The most recent Lara Adrian book, Midnight Rising, struggles with this equation, trying I think, to forge some kind of compromise. We know early on that the heroine’s mother is gravely ill and that she has no other family members in her life, but she does have friends, and they are not done away with at the end of the novel. Frankly, I’d like to see more Romances conscious of these issues, because it’s not enough for me to know that the hero will always love and protect the heroine; my fantasy is that women don’t have to be isolated to find True Love. For me, the isolation of heroines from family and friends is just a tad too close to social disempowerment and marginalization. That doesn’t mean there aren’t books in which I can accept that choice from the heroine; Candice Proctor’s Whispers of Heaven is a good example. But the automatic nature of the heroine’s isolation (and so often it’s ONLY the heroine and not the hero) seems more a burden to me than any messy and sometimes exasperating family obligations like those in, say, the novels of Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Eloisa James.
So what do you think? Is the isolated heroine a purer fantasy vehicle, or is she a regressive model of female disempowerment?
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April 14th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I find it interesting that Kresley Cole’s recent paranormals are subverting this trend–both heroes and heroines so far have been non-human in some way, though of different species, and the families of the heroines have been involved as both collaborators and blocking agents. In fact, all of the heroines so far have come from female-centered societies: the first two from a house full of Valkyries, and the third from an all-female coven. The heroes have been marked by loss of family: the first through being imprisoned for centuries and thought dead, the second through estrangement, the third through losing his original mate.
However, even in these books, there’s a period of isolation from family for both hero and heroine. I wonder if it isn’t a “liminal period” necessary to incite rapid change in their relationship.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Robin, before I got to your final paragraph the heroine in Midnight Rising and all of the heroines in Adrian’s and Ward’s series were on my mind. I think that authors use the isolated female with the intent of it being a vehicle for fantasy (rescue fantasy, power of love fantasy, power of The One fantasy, whichever), but ultimately it becomes a model of disempowerment. Or at the very least a model of dysfunction within a relationship, since the His Love Is Enough theme is a questionable one for me. So often the heroine gives up everything for love, while the hero gives up nothing or changes nothing about his lifestyle. Supporting a loved one is one thing; becoming an appendage is another. The lack of choice and autonomy that heroines often end up with as a result of their choice of mates makes me uncomfortable — it seems rather paternalistic and patronizing.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Victoria: The Cole series is a GREAT example of subversion, IMO, not only for the reasons you give, but also because there is so much integration among the different supernatural worlds of the novels. Generally, though, I find myself drawn to some of these heroine-centered series because of the overt sense of community and support among the females and the way it cuts against the model of the heroine clinging to the hero for such things.
However, even in these books, there’s a period of isolation from family for both hero and heroine. I wonder if it isn’t a “liminal period” necessary to incite rapid change in their relationship.
I think this is a really good point, and I think it might be one of the reasons that the road trip Romance and captivity Romance are so popular. When the hero and heroine are isolated together there’s a pressure-bonding situation at work, which definitely speeds things up (it’s the same phenomenon you see on reality TV dating shows, IMO). But as you imply in your comments, this is, I think, a different type of isolation, being something about the *couple* and not just one partner.
JMC: Yes, that’s how I think of it, too. IMO there are many elements of the genre that can either go regressive or progressive depending on how they play out. Rape in Romance is another one of those elements. The isolation trope, though, seems less complicated to me (which doesn’t mean I think it plays out the same way all the time), in part because so often the heroine transfers her social power to the hero without even realizing it, I think. And I think we, as readers, do the same thing at times.
Supporting a loved one is one thing; becoming an appendage is another.
I see it as the difference between interdependence and dependence.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I think romance has a lot in common with fairytales. Many heroines (and heroes) of fairytales are orphans. It’s their lack of familial protection that opens them up to danger and potential exploitation and so provides the conflict in the story. And that’s usually the case for romance heroines too. Whilst the friendless heroine works wonderfully in historical romance (Gaffney is brilliant at these heroines for example) it is much more difficult to pull off in contemporary romance.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
–So what do you think? Is the isolated heroine a purer fantasy vehicle, or is she a regressive model of female disempowerment?–
Like so many other themes in Romance, how well the isolated heroine works for me is largely based on the skill of the author. In the example of J. R. Ward, I read the first three books before the heroines’ isolation began to seem seriously pathological to me. I just wasn’t able to buy into the idea that “If it’s True Love, the hero is enough to fill the heroine’s life,” after that point. Heck, I dearly love my husband, but if I had him and only him, I’d be certifiable, or more certifiable than I already am. Ward’s choice to isolate her heroines, instead of seeming romantic, seemed lazy, so her writing failed to serve the fantasy.
On the other hand, I really loathe romances where (usually) the heroine is surrounded by family members who are supposed to be quirky and entertaining while they interfere in the heroine’s life, and the heroine never quite gets around to telling them to bug off and tend to their own knitting. I have equally serious doubts about how long the HEA is going to last in those cases.
It’s all about the quality of the writing, and how well the plot devices serve the story. I think I’ve said that before a few times!
April 15th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
It’s a classic coming-of-age setup. Children’s/young adult fiction often features an isolated kid, family who *should* care instead creating a stressful situation, kid meeting a special friend who understands him, and kid discovering his own powers. I’d say there are just a few parallels there.
(BTW, that’s also a classic fantasy novel structure–one reason that I read fantasy briefly in my early teens, then tired of that storyline.)
In romance, I agree with Tumperkin that contemporary settings highlight the challenges of conflict that depends on isolation and persecution. As with the rape issue, the coming-of-age setup can come across as either building up or tearing down the heroine–finding her path in life or being treated like a child. Or both.
This issue came home to me a few years ago. I’d read quite a string of isolated heroines, and was pretty tired of the melodrama and cumulative squickiness. I happened to try a Jennifer Crusie and found an ensemble piece with a particularly strong community. It was incredibly refreshing that the story had conflict and the heroine had issues to face and plenty of room for self-discovery–all without resorting to an extreme degree of isolation or a wicked stepfather/stalker ex/bitchy Other Woman.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Tumperkin: The fairy tale analogy is interesting (I’m thinking those other than Disney here), because of their acculturative and socializing purposes — another reason I find the trope so disturbing in Romance sometimes. It’s interesting to compare the male orphan of literary fame — think Pip from Great Expectations, for example — and the female orphan. We are still, I think, very much in the social pattern of locating female security in marriage rather than independence, and, of course, in romanticizing that (now I’m thinking Disney, lol). Which may be one reason we can accept it better in historical Romance rather than contemps (although it’s somewhat common in paranormals).
Aoife: It took me a while to get freaked out by the Ward heroines, too, primarily, I think, because it went from one heroine to a pattern. And I think that’s my concern with the genre. I mean, how many of these isolated heroines are that way because the author has made a deliberate choice to have them isolated, or is it just a default, either because it makes it easier to hook her up with the hero or because it’s so much a trope within the genre? From book to book I can see how it works for me or doesn’t, but on a meta-level it takes on a different significance for me, I guess. And I think it’s the same, frankly, for the heroine surrounded by the interfering family — how often is that sequel bait, for heaven’s sake?
RfP: your comment and Tumperkin’s take me back to my initial frustration with the isolated heroine — how often does she really discover her own power and how often is that deferred to the hero? I was talking with Jane recently about how paranormals either seem to follow the pattern of Kresley Cole books — the heroine-centric, independent female model, or the Ward pattern where the heroine becomes primarily empowered through the hero’s love and then maybe makes some secondary female bonding connections. Very little in-between (although, as I said, I think Lara Adrian’s books are searching for it).
And Jennifer Crusie’s books were among those I was thinking of in regard to a well-connected heroine, although it’s interesting how often Crusie’s characters have problems with their mothers. In fact, it’s often the hero, who finds the heroine all “round” and “soft,” not overtly a mother-substitute, but there are sometimes some interesting dynamics there. But I think one of the reasons I love Fast Women is because IMO it breaks so many genre stereotypes, both in regard to the female friendships and in regard to the heroine’s sexuality.
Where I’d like to think about this more, actually, is in Romantic Suspense, where, as your comments lightly referenced, you often have this stalker figure who functions to place the heroine in a vulnerable place from which the hero can rescue her. So again there’s this dilemma for me between the virtues of the rescue fantasy and the incredible vulnerability of the heroine and how that is resolved. It may, in many cases, by like the rape fantasy, where the heroine becomes powerful through the thing that in RL so utterly victimizes her. But I’m not sure.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:11 am
Crusie has also written some evil older women. Her female characters’ relationships aren’t all sunshine and positive role models. But that first Crusie I read hit the spot. I forget which it was; I remember being struck by how the community added to my attachment to the characters and my belief in the happy ending.
On the stalker plot, one view might be that it’s just another means of setting up the isolation and quest–but a means that creates an atmosphere of urgency and lack of control rather than of introspection or hopefulness. In another view, romantic suspense is interesting as an end member within suspense.
In straight suspense with a stalker, the baddie might set up the main character’s isolation–literally isolated, or isolated by the threat, or by everyone else’s incomprehension. The hero would then save himself (or occasionally herself) and possibly the world, often with lots of action but less self-discovery. For the very hero-centric suspense there’s often a romantic interest in the background, but she doesn’t share in his glory. On the other hand, some best-selling suspense is not stalker-focused but involves some kind of discovery quest–exploring self, religion, love, etc.
In a lot of romantic suspense with female protagonists, on the other hand, the default is the coming-of-age/being tested/turning point in life, and it’s the mode of saving-oneself or saving-the-world that’s in question: will the heroine save herself or will the hero or the two of them together? I think many of the older 20th C. Gothic romantic suspense novels (e.g. Brandon, Stewart, Whitney) have this type of heroine: she’s at a turning point, scary things happen, she saves herself in part through a new relationship.
There are a lot of other ways to carve up suspense and romantic suspense; I think you’re right that there’s plenty of material there to argue over.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
[...] Cole takes it even farther by flipping the hero into the traditional heroine type. As Robin blogged over at Reader’s Gab, so often heroines are solitary creatures with few friends and and not much of a support system; most importantly, the heroine is generally inexperienced. [...]
April 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
“Is the isolated heroine a purer fantasy vehicle, or is she a regressive model of female disempowerment?”
Give me romance with an atypical heroine and plot, where the protagonist isn’t isolated, saved by the hero or by love. In fact, the latter actually complicates the plot and causes the heroine to make some poor choices. Albeit, not stupid choices but naive decisions based on love that may (and do) create further conflict.
“In a lot of romantic suspense with female protagonists, on the other hand, the default is the coming-of-age/being tested/turning point in life, and it’s the mode of saving-oneself or saving-the-world that’s in question: will the heroine save herself or will the hero or the two of them together?”
This could also occur in a genre flip-flop of “epic fantasy”, where it rests on the heroine to be the savior. It may not sit well with women who wished to be saved by strong men but the notion is empowering, particularily if the love interest is stalwart but due to circumstances, is unable to challenge the adversary.
This topic of romance genre flip-flop is timely as I am scripting a Period Fantasy Romance screen adaptation, atypically showcasing a female lead and surprisingly, the heroine is not isolated. Interesting to note, these are two of the four vital elements for film, genre flip-flop and unexpected twists. Therefore the book might not suit readers of pure genre but the film industry considers it both viable and desirable.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I’m late to this blog but wanted to comment anyway. I think one of the reasons for the isolation trope is that it can make the falling in love process more dramatic.
I once took a writing class with a writer who said she keeps a sign by her computer. The sign bears three words: “What’s at stake?” She told the class about this sign to make the point that a writer should know what is at stake in her story and in every scene of her story. So “What’s at stake?” is one of the questions that I try to remember to ask myself when I write.
If a character (whether it’s the hero or the heroine) is isolated when he or she meets the other protagonist, then there is that much more that’s at stake in the outcome of the story. It’s not just about two happy people who have almost everything they want and need becoming even happier. Now it becomes about whether they will remain lonely and isolated. Not just their togetherness, but also their happiness is now at stake.
From a perspective of psychological health and well-being, it’s obviously better to have a strong support system. A relationship in which both people have that is probably less likely to become dysfunctional.
But from a dramatic storytelling perspective, that means the outcome of the relationship is less vital to the characters, and therefore, all other things being equal, probably less important to the reader as well.
Perhaps for that reason, I’m somewhat resistant to the notion that characters in books need to be models of psychological health and well-being. I think the unhappy or confused or even somewhat dysfunctional character is often the more compelling one. I’m not saying that a character can’t be both well-adjusted and compelling; I think they can. But it’s harder to pull that off. And for me personally, there haven’t been very many books along those lines that have really hit me hard and stayed with me for a long time.
Please don’t take that to mean that I think all heroines should be isolated. Nothing is further from the case. I think we should encourage variety, in this as in many other things. But off the top of my head I can think of two incredibly potent books with isolated heroines, by two of my favorite authors: Kinsale’s Seize the Fire and Gaffney’s To Have and to Hold. I cannot imagine either of those books working had the heroines had strong social support systems.
Secondly, I have thought of another reason for authors to isolate their characters. I’m now, as I work on writing a romance, becoming keenly aware that characters take up pages, and with wordcount constraints being what they are, it is getting more difficult to write books with many characters. The more minor characters one includes, the fewer words are available for the main characters’ story. Especially if one aims to try to make all those characters round and multi-dimensional.
In J.R. Ward’s case, the Brotherhood alone includes several characters, and her books are already quite long. If she gave the heroines the kind of social network her heroes have, and still kept all the Brotherhood characters as fully developed as they are, the books would be even longer. So it may be (though this is pure speculation on my part) that this is one of her considerations.