In Reading the Romance, Janice Radway elucidates on the role of romantic fiction in women’s life. Radway specifically focuses on the middle class women who lead a hectic life, maintaining their household, looking after children and most of all working on their marriage. Somewhere along the way, Radway describes, they feel so exhausted by everything that they require a tremendous boost to their spirit. They find that much needed spirit upholstering and a boost in the romantic novels.
In the introduction of her book, Radway has mentioned four letters of different women who appreciate a good romantic novel and how they “uplift their spirits” (Radway, 3). Although the women feel the same thing about these romantic novels yet their take on them is different. They do feel that the novels add uniqueness to their frenzied yet monotonous life but where one woman feels that the novels “enable her to do something constructive to their lives” (Radway, 5), the other feels that the women are led to “hypocrisy and bad faith” (Radway, 4). Therefore in this book, Radway analyses the feelings and reasons for why women spend money on these books.
Reading the Romance is mainly a discussion between a group of women or Romantic critiques and their take on the Romantic novels plus the role they play in popular fiction. It includes interviews of sixteen women and views of forty two other women; their views are analysed on the basis of questionares ( “Janice Radway and the Politics of Reading Romance”).
According to Radway, the romantic work, especially the contemprory fiction plays an important role in shaping the emotions and ideas of women. These novels revolve around the feelings of confusion, anger, passion, emotional frenzy and in turn they arouse simlar emotions in the female fan following. In short, these novles are like a vent for the women who are unable to express their feelings in their usual routine. Another emotion which is aroused by this genre is the feeling that “how does it feels to be the object of romance”. The word object is the keyword here and can be interpreted in many ways. It can symbolize the fact that no matter how loved these women (characters of the novel) are, they are still regaraded as “objects” of a patriarchal society. Therefore, this can lead to believe that there is not much difference between the actual women and the fictitious characters. Then, the term “object” can also be interpreted in the sense, that as women are objects, they can have no real feelings so how can they arise the feelings in other women.
Moreover, the endings of a novel are of great significance and they have a great impact on a woman’s mind. According to Radway, a happy ending is extremely necessary for the readers and they “must enforce monogamy”( Radway, 74). This means that it is important for the woman’s emotional state that a happy ending is given at the end of novel otherwise the woman will feel deprived of life. If the work is monogomous in nature, it will instill the zest for life in women.
As already discussed, women read the romances for the catharsis of their emotions. Moreover, the reading also signifies the independence of the Self. This means that when a woman reads a novel or any other piece of work, she is doing that for herself and in her own free time. She is doing something new and out of the ordinary for herself besides doing the regular chores of her house. Radway in her book says that the main potential detractor of the woman’s independent Self is the patriarchal figure of the family. This can be her father, her husband or her brother. Radway writes “In role where women spend all their time caring for others, reading is a self-care activity” (Radway, 92). But this self-care activity is generally taken as a sign of antipathy by the husbands or fathers because they feel that the sole responsibility of a woman is to take care of the house and family members and that she should do more productive things in her free time than reading a romantic novel. The male figures are also against the romantic work because they feel that they inculcate negative and sinful thoughts in a woman’s mind. But now women defend their romance reading from the detractors and this is because they obtain a certain sense of power from these books. Therefore, Radway says that reading a romance brings about positive changes in the women as well. The female readers are motivated by the female protagonist of the romantic genre. Usually in the novels, the female characters or heroines are portrayed as a “tomboyish figure” (Radway, 134), self-sufficient, and sassy. The women or readers are inspired by these characters. Therefore, it can be said that the middle class woman gets education from these novels. In the Romantic genre, we usually see that the identity of the main female character is misunderstood by the society and how she works hard to clear the misconception and all through it she remains strong and courageous.
Many critics, who otherwise are against the Romantic fiction, appreciate this trait of the female characters. This trait is more apparent in the popular fiction and is opposed to the concept of “damsel in distress” of the Victorian writers. Moreover, it is because of this trait in the female characters that the middle class women feel that they can resist the confines that the society imposes on them.
The male figures in these novels have special significances. The male protagonists of the novels are larger than life figures. They come from a well to do family. They are authoritative, powerful and generally the female figures are afraid yet attracted towards their sexuality. The readers sometimes develop a desire or wish to find such romance in their real lives. This is somewhat tragic because when they do not find the fantastical figure, they get depressed. Or if a married woman is inspired by the fictitious love story, she can either make her marriage more strong or can destroy it because of the airy fairy conceptions.
Therefore, Radway in her book is not partial to Romances. She represents a neutral view. She describes some disadvantages of reading the romances and some advantages. More specifically, she says, it all depends on the perception of the reader. Some romances are written solely for the purpose of entertainment. The reader should be sensible enough to differentiate between fiction and reality, imagination and common sense. They do provide education in certain regards but they should be read as a source of entertainment. Like television provides a source of entertainment and revitalizes your spirits, similarly one should not mix reality and fiction. This will just confuse their otherwise simple life. Hence, Reading the Romance provides an analysis and view of romantic novels and fiction plus the reaction of women towards them in an academic yet friendly way.
Works Cited
“Janice Radway and the Politics of Reading Romance”. 17 January.2010. Web. 20 May 2012.
Radway, Janice. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Print.
