In reading Janice Radway’s Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context the
idea of women escaping in to romance novels was most striking. As I myself am
not an avid reader of the popular romance novels of Nicholas Sparks or Jane
Austen, I found this article to provide and interesting perspective. The
Smithton women who indulge in romance novels overwhelmingly refer to escape as their
primary reasoning for reading. Radway describes how the term of escape is used
both literally and figuratively. The women can use romance novels to literally
escape from their surroundings and withdraw their attention from reality. While
I must agree that romance novels do provide an entertaining way to literally
escape, I would argue that many other genres too accomplish this goal. The draw
to romance novels, therefore, must be for the figurative escape into a world of
whirlwind romance and happy endings. In
their interviews, the Smithton women explained that “They feel refreshed and
strengthened by their vicarious participation in a fantasy relationship where
the heroine is frequently treated as they themselves would most like to be
loved” (47). Women can fantasize about being attended to and cherished just as
the heroine in their novels.
Some of the quotes cited in this article about how women
fantasize about a life and relationship different from their own made me
question and further investigate the idea romance novels ruining relationships.
I found this article that touched on this concept and provided some more
perspectives.
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