Crusading Heroines & Readers Who Love Them
Pam’s comments on a recent post had me thinking all weekend . . .
There is a trend in historical romance (or so it seems to me) for heroines to be crusading do-gooders, or at the very least to be overly aware of the myriad of horrors that lurk behind the everyday commonalities of life and commer
ce and production. This awareness on their part seems to be in direct contradiction to historical reality and even to modern reality.
When I’ve discussed this issue with friends (of both the reader and the writerly persuasion) I get a response that I find quite curious: they think that having characters highlight the dark side of life back then by being reformers makes the character more accessible for a 21st century reader. I like to counter by asking if they felt a lack of connection with the women on Sex in the City or Desperate House Wives because they don’t obsess about the factories full of women (and yes, they’re almost all women, practically girls) who spend 9/10 hours a day sewing their garments, or the boys who cobble their shoes, or the Pakistani children who sharpen and polish surgical instruments so their doctor boyfriends can earn their astronomical salaries to pay for those dinners at Nobu? I never noticed that it was a problem for the masses.
In fact, most modern Westerners (yeah, I’m pointing my finger at Canadians and Europeans here too) don’t know and don’t care where their “cheap” goods come from. The mom shopping at Wal-Mart for her kinds Dora the Explorer flipflops doesn’t care what conditions they were made under and she doesn’t want to be told and made to feel bad. The college student dumping his old PC for a shiny new Mac doesn’t know (and doesn’t care) about the electronic waste that’s poisoning the 3rd world. People don’t want to be told that their penchant for beef is one of the leading causes of global warming, or that the imported teak floor they just installed is an environmental nightmare.
But I’m beginning to wonder if readers’ penchant for crusading historical heroines isn’t a way of sidestepping their modern guilt over all of the above (I mean, we all KNOW at some level that everything we buy and eat and wear and drink has a cost in blood, sweat and tears that someone else is paying, right?). If characters like Heyer’s Arabella Tallent (who scoops up climbing boys and
faces down their masters) and Jeffries’ Lady Clara Stanbourne (who runs a home for pickpockets), and, oh, I don’t know, a dozen other books I’ve read where the heroine runs some committee for the poor, or puts on a ball, or is BFFs with her maid, aren’t giving us an extra jolt of fantasy and an extra hit of feel-good-about-the-world that is totally based on our being able to feel superior along with our heroine? Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I don’t see this same trend in contemporary romances (or maybe I’m just missing the books with the heroines who are consumed by modern causes . . . but I think not, cause in a modern setting such a character quickly begins to feel preachy).
I mean, can you tell me (without looking!) where your shoes were made?
There is a trend in historical romance (or so it seems to me) for heroines to be crusading do-gooders, or at the very least to be overly aware of the myriad of horrors that lurk behind the everyday commonalities of life and commer
ce and production. This awareness on their part seems to be in direct contradiction to historical reality and even to modern reality.When I’ve discussed this issue with friends (of both the reader and the writerly persuasion) I get a response that I find quite curious: they think that having characters highlight the dark side of life back then by being reformers makes the character more accessible for a 21st century reader. I like to counter by asking if they felt a lack of connection with the women on Sex in the City or Desperate House Wives because they don’t obsess about the factories full of women (and yes, they’re almost all women, practically girls) who spend 9/10 hours a day sewing their garments, or the boys who cobble their shoes, or the Pakistani children who sharpen and polish surgical instruments so their doctor boyfriends can earn their astronomical salaries to pay for those dinners at Nobu? I never noticed that it was a problem for the masses.
In fact, most modern Westerners (yeah, I’m pointing my finger at Canadians and Europeans here too) don’t know and don’t care where their “cheap” goods come from. The mom shopping at Wal-Mart for her kinds Dora the Explorer flipflops doesn’t care what conditions they were made under and she doesn’t want to be told and made to feel bad. The college student dumping his old PC for a shiny new Mac doesn’t know (and doesn’t care) about the electronic waste that’s poisoning the 3rd world. People don’t want to be told that their penchant for beef is one of the leading causes of global warming, or that the imported teak floor they just installed is an environmental nightmare.But I’m beginning to wonder if readers’ penchant for crusading historical heroines isn’t a way of sidestepping their modern guilt over all of the above (I mean, we all KNOW at some level that everything we buy and eat and wear and drink has a cost in blood, sweat and tears that someone else is paying, right?). If characters like Heyer’s Arabella Tallent (who scoops up climbing boys and
faces down their masters) and Jeffries’ Lady Clara Stanbourne (who runs a home for pickpockets), and, oh, I don’t know, a dozen other books I’ve read where the heroine runs some committee for the poor, or puts on a ball, or is BFFs with her maid, aren’t giving us an extra jolt of fantasy and an extra hit of feel-good-about-the-world that is totally based on our being able to feel superior along with our heroine? Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I don’t see this same trend in contemporary romances (or maybe I’m just missing the books with the heroines who are consumed by modern causes . . . but I think not, cause in a modern setting such a character quickly begins to feel preachy).I mean, can you tell me (without looking!) where your shoes were made?
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