Where is my Happy Ending and Why am I Looking for it? The Romance Myth in Contemporary Popular Australian Women’s Fiction

Abstract

This thesis examines the presence of the romance myth in contemporary popular Australian women’s fiction. Even after decades of feminism, the repetition of the love story discourse presents readers with a single relationship ideal: heterosexual monogamy. This thesis performs a discourse analysis on a variety of texts published before 2000 to establish a context of Australian women’s fiction, and on four texts published after 2000, in order to ask the question: how is the love story represented in the twenty-first century? Romance is always examined as a genre; its construction within texts of other genres has never before been analysed. The Introduction outlines the discourse analysis methodology, based on the work of Michel Foucault and James Gee. Chapter One provides a literature review and discussion of how romance has been treated by critics. Chapter Two examines second-wave feminist perspectives of romantic love and the perspectives of later feminists – ‘woman’ as sexualised object appears to be the current trend – as well as the significance of feminist literary theory to popular texts. Chapter Two also discusses the work of cultural studies in relation to this thesis. Chapters Three and Four outline a brief history of Australian women’s writing in order to highlight the recurrence of the love story discourse communicated in 150 years of fiction. Chapter Three provides an historical overview of the presence of the romance story in Australian women’s writing. Chapter Four examines the use of fiction for a specific political purpose: short stories published in The Australian Women’s Weekly during the 1940s which supported the Weekly’s overall aim to steer women towards strictly gendered roles for the good of the nation; literature that conflicted with the heterosexual monogamous ideal was banned from publication and circulation in Australia because it was considered deviant and unpatriotic; and short stories in contemporary issues of The Australian Women’s Weekly which still focus on women as wives and mothers and as concerned only with romantic love. Each of the remaining chapters considers a contemporary genre’s use of the romance myth. In Chapter Five, an examination of a Harlequin Mills & Boon novel, Dr Blake’s Angel, reveals romantic love as being an integral part of community life and a woman’s desire to nurture. Examined in Chapter Six is Three Wishes, a chick-lit novel that follows the romantic difficulties of a set of triplets. Each triplet must learn humility and, therefore, acceptable femininity, before they can achieve a successful heterosexual monogamous relationship. Chapter Seven analyses The Tower of Ravens, a fantasy novel also advocating conservative femininity and demonstrating a close relationship to the love story discourse. Rhiannon, although uncivilised and violent, becomes a heroine through her total devotion to Lewen. Chapter Eight investigates a crime novel, Malicious Intent, where the love story discourse is employed to distract the heroine from solving the crime. Anya is seen to believe wholeheartedly in the romance plot, as are all the victims. All women, then, are presented as perpetual victims, and all women lose because all men pose a threat. Romantic love is something to aspire to, but it cannot be achieved. Why am I looking for a heterosexual and monogamous happy ending? As this thesis shows, the love story discourse has been presented consistently through women’s fiction that focuses on relationships. Despite the decades of feminist intervention, contemporary popular Australian fiction constantly and consistently presents heterosexual, monogamous relationships that preferably lead to marriage. The heterosexual, monogamous happy ending, or its deliberate critique, is present not only in romance fiction but also in most texts written by women, in genres that do not require a love story plot.