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Abstract
Romance novels, functional rather than aesthetic narratives, play a specific role in readers' lives. Ritualistically repeating stories of female identity, romances acclimate and therefore adjust women to a men's world. Silhouette romances, the most consistent of the currently available romances, manipulate readers' perceptions of self and society through modelling women's 'place' as subservient, responsible to the man whom fate has chosen for her. Romances orient readers to perceiving themselves as 'women' living in a patriarchal world.
In this dissertation, I analyze Silhouette's five romance series, charting the typical events in each, as well as the usual characteristics of their female and male leads. Then, through comparing the five, I reveal the eight step narrative schema all share. Further, through contrasting that particular story with three alternative tellings of women's romance, I show Silhouettes limit and constrain their heroines and heroes and argue they may well have a similar effect on readers.
This analysis, combined with a review of pertinent narrative theory, suggests romances interact with the lives of their readers. Romances depict a world of 'limited goods' for women, a world which can only be escaped through aligning themselves with strong, potent men. In this world, women realize they have no public space and find the best they can do is carve out for themselves a private place. Another strain of romances, one which features women who are equal partners with men, coexists with Silhouettes. The popularity of the one and the presence of the other suggests a possible change in the romance genre, but more importantly, even though material restraints on women are easing, that cultural and psychological restraints have yet to follow suit.
In conclusion, I suggest these two romance rhetorics exemplify the base and noble rhetoric Plato discusses in the Phaedrus. Silhouette's base rhetoric suppresses the humanity of the beloved while the alternative noble rhetoric releases and encourages that of its beloved. As long as Silhouette's base rhetoric holds sway, women readers of romance will find in these narratives a world in which they will always take second place and perceive themselves accordingly.
