Postmillennial femininities in the popular romance novel |
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Authors: | Eirini Arvanitaki |
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Institution: | Department of English, University of Hull, Hull, UK |
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Abstract: | Popular romance fiction was thought to carry a patriarchal ideology and was often dismissed as a manifestation of ingrained prejudice and bigotry against the female sex. However, there appears to have been influence from feminism, particularly where Harlequin Mills and Boon stories use the contemporary world and ‘reality’ as a touchstone. In this article I will discuss how the heroines of Harlequin Mills and Boon postmillennial ‘Modern’ novels display various expressions of feminism which contribute to the construction of their identities but that ultimately these tales rely on the dismantling of these autonomous identities sine the heroine is still required to be ‘swept off her feet’. |
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Keywords: | Postmillennial romance heroines femininities feminism gender |
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