![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- An analysis of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga and other female developmental novels
Most of us have read them, either the classical ones or some modern version - or seen it on film for that matter: The Picaresque novel/story. A (unequivocally) male hero or anti-hero, young and with visions and urges and dreams sets out into the world and is subjected to setbacks, challenges, love and destruction. He will need to survive on his own wits, talents and basically on how fast he can develop compared to what life serves up for him.
In these stories there are different archetypes who serve as support-characters in order for the hero to develop; we have the good woman (or sometimes the pixielike, bubbly happy girl), the wise sage and teacher ( 98.9 % male ), the villain (also almost always male), the bad woman (a female who's tempting but turns out to be fake or greedy or not that pretty after all - those basic mortal sins of an archetypal Lilith) and last but not least we have SOCIETY, that set of social dynamics and constructs which provides the jungle in which our hero loses his path and has to survive and ultimately find his own ways.
This story is old, we have all seen it, heard it or read it, but there is another story, just as old and well known, and yet not as often written about. I'm talking about the female Lazarillo, or rather what happens when a young girl is an archetype of a developmental story.
Most of us ladies have read these books, if for no other reason than for the urge of reading a book with a female protagonist of our own age (and the age at that time is often teenage to young adult).
In these books the female is sometimes shy, sometimes outspoken - she is almost always "good", as in generically fair and considerate of her surroundings. Sometimes she is pretty or beautiful in a directly described manner, and never ever downright ugly. The most "interesting" twists in these novels is when the heroine is "homely" and shy and gradually, through the interest and love of a dashing male "blooms" into her true self and becomes beautiful and love-worthy.
These books reincarnate over and over again in generation after generation, and the latest installation is of course in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. I read the first of these books because I had to know what the hype was about, and to see if it was anything I could recommend for the ABC-teach website. And then I read a somewhat idiotic review of the books by Leonard Sax in the Washington Post. Sax means that the fact that so many teenage girls buy these books is proof of the theory that gender differences do exist and that gender matters.
Fine, it does, but that doesn't mean that there is something genuinely female in wanting to be saved and wanting to be a piece of meat that every guy, be he vamp or were-creature, lust after.
I'm fairly sure that many female readers of these books are irritated when they read about Bella's helplessness, the problem is that on a certain level Bella is right now the best they can get - or at least the best promoted thing in this genre they can get.
Sure, there are strong female heroes out there, who fight a boy's game, who win, etc etc, but that is not, let me repeat not the genre I'm talking about, and that is where Leonard Sax misses the whole point.
There are gender differences, even if the stereotypes are far more muddled than most hardcore believers or anti-believers of biologically dictated gender preferences want admit to.
But my point is: the female picaresque novel, or the female developmental novel, whatever we prefer to call it is about discovering our feelings of love for another human being (or vampire or what have you), and the discovery of being worthy of love by someone who is awe-inspiring.
It is not about being saved, it is not about being weak and helpless - although, the flawed archetypal novel of this kind certainly serves up enough of that dish as well.
Girls read Stephenie Meyers books because they talk about feelings in great detail, over and over again, and because there is a gorgeous male in it, who listens to the girl and is overwhelmingly interested in her (somewhat mundane) interests and thoughts. In reality these books are not so much about Bella, as about a perfect male who pastes the interest of his phenomenal personality onto a nobody, and that nobody could be any one of the female readers, because any one of the female readers could be more interesting or better than Bella, and herein lies the allurement of the books.
It is simple: Lots of girls need to read about female protagonists, they need to read about female protagonists taking a journey from mundane girls into love-worthy girls, they need to read about attractive men having conversations about feelings with women, and finding those conversations interesting, and they need some larger than life fantasy mixed into this equation if possible. And if the books served up in their generation are somewhat sub-par (as I think Meyer's books are), then so be it, a need is a need, and needs to be respected.
Maybe I should add, that on other matters I tend to agree somewhat with Leonard Sax, in so far that I believe that sex differences are both innate and learned, I do think however that Sax misses several points to his tiresome analysis simply by not showing enough interest and understanding to the needs of young women and their development, and above all the multifaceted needs they have.
These books fulfill only one or at best a few of these needs, and what Leonard Sax doesn't seem to understand is that while young girls (and older girls for that matter) may read the books, they often see them for what they are, with all their flaws, just as intelligent young men often see violence and war for what it is, when they engage in such archetypal reading/watching/gaming.
And last but not least, that many girls are attracted to the glory of battle and many guys are attracted to the concept of being love worthy and getting their feelings validated, they are attracted to these scenarios as long as the context in which they are served appeal to their general gender preferences and codes.
In simpler words: a young man can have a powerful read or movie watch about another young man having his feelings validated and earning love, as long as it is in a context that doesn't seem effeminate. A young girl can love heroic warlike glory...as long as there is a female in the mix, and that female is convincing and real.
For those who openly, or secretly and shamefully, love the female Lazarillo novel, I recommend Tanith Lee's The Silver Metal Lover - a novel I myself read when I was 16, an which has come out in new print several times since it first came out in the early 80's. It is a far better story than Meyer's and the heroine can actually do things on her own - but it still fulfills our needs to read about otherworldly gorgeous male characters who are above humanity, and about feelings, always about feelings.
Cross-posted in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
biblio_life
Most of us have read them, either the classical ones or some modern version - or seen it on film for that matter: The Picaresque novel/story. A (unequivocally) male hero or anti-hero, young and with visions and urges and dreams sets out into the world and is subjected to setbacks, challenges, love and destruction. He will need to survive on his own wits, talents and basically on how fast he can develop compared to what life serves up for him.
In these stories there are different archetypes who serve as support-characters in order for the hero to develop; we have the good woman (or sometimes the pixielike, bubbly happy girl), the wise sage and teacher ( 98.9 % male ), the villain (also almost always male), the bad woman (a female who's tempting but turns out to be fake or greedy or not that pretty after all - those basic mortal sins of an archetypal Lilith) and last but not least we have SOCIETY, that set of social dynamics and constructs which provides the jungle in which our hero loses his path and has to survive and ultimately find his own ways.
This story is old, we have all seen it, heard it or read it, but there is another story, just as old and well known, and yet not as often written about. I'm talking about the female Lazarillo, or rather what happens when a young girl is an archetype of a developmental story.
Most of us ladies have read these books, if for no other reason than for the urge of reading a book with a female protagonist of our own age (and the age at that time is often teenage to young adult).
In these books the female is sometimes shy, sometimes outspoken - she is almost always "good", as in generically fair and considerate of her surroundings. Sometimes she is pretty or beautiful in a directly described manner, and never ever downright ugly. The most "interesting" twists in these novels is when the heroine is "homely" and shy and gradually, through the interest and love of a dashing male "blooms" into her true self and becomes beautiful and love-worthy.
These books reincarnate over and over again in generation after generation, and the latest installation is of course in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. I read the first of these books because I had to know what the hype was about, and to see if it was anything I could recommend for the ABC-teach website. And then I read a somewhat idiotic review of the books by Leonard Sax in the Washington Post. Sax means that the fact that so many teenage girls buy these books is proof of the theory that gender differences do exist and that gender matters.
Fine, it does, but that doesn't mean that there is something genuinely female in wanting to be saved and wanting to be a piece of meat that every guy, be he vamp or were-creature, lust after.
I'm fairly sure that many female readers of these books are irritated when they read about Bella's helplessness, the problem is that on a certain level Bella is right now the best they can get - or at least the best promoted thing in this genre they can get.
Sure, there are strong female heroes out there, who fight a boy's game, who win, etc etc, but that is not, let me repeat not the genre I'm talking about, and that is where Leonard Sax misses the whole point.
There are gender differences, even if the stereotypes are far more muddled than most hardcore believers or anti-believers of biologically dictated gender preferences want admit to.
But my point is: the female picaresque novel, or the female developmental novel, whatever we prefer to call it is about discovering our feelings of love for another human being (or vampire or what have you), and the discovery of being worthy of love by someone who is awe-inspiring.
It is not about being saved, it is not about being weak and helpless - although, the flawed archetypal novel of this kind certainly serves up enough of that dish as well.
Girls read Stephenie Meyers books because they talk about feelings in great detail, over and over again, and because there is a gorgeous male in it, who listens to the girl and is overwhelmingly interested in her (somewhat mundane) interests and thoughts. In reality these books are not so much about Bella, as about a perfect male who pastes the interest of his phenomenal personality onto a nobody, and that nobody could be any one of the female readers, because any one of the female readers could be more interesting or better than Bella, and herein lies the allurement of the books.
It is simple: Lots of girls need to read about female protagonists, they need to read about female protagonists taking a journey from mundane girls into love-worthy girls, they need to read about attractive men having conversations about feelings with women, and finding those conversations interesting, and they need some larger than life fantasy mixed into this equation if possible. And if the books served up in their generation are somewhat sub-par (as I think Meyer's books are), then so be it, a need is a need, and needs to be respected.
Maybe I should add, that on other matters I tend to agree somewhat with Leonard Sax, in so far that I believe that sex differences are both innate and learned, I do think however that Sax misses several points to his tiresome analysis simply by not showing enough interest and understanding to the needs of young women and their development, and above all the multifaceted needs they have.
These books fulfill only one or at best a few of these needs, and what Leonard Sax doesn't seem to understand is that while young girls (and older girls for that matter) may read the books, they often see them for what they are, with all their flaws, just as intelligent young men often see violence and war for what it is, when they engage in such archetypal reading/watching/gaming.
And last but not least, that many girls are attracted to the glory of battle and many guys are attracted to the concept of being love worthy and getting their feelings validated, they are attracted to these scenarios as long as the context in which they are served appeal to their general gender preferences and codes.
In simpler words: a young man can have a powerful read or movie watch about another young man having his feelings validated and earning love, as long as it is in a context that doesn't seem effeminate. A young girl can love heroic warlike glory...as long as there is a female in the mix, and that female is convincing and real.
For those who openly, or secretly and shamefully, love the female Lazarillo novel, I recommend Tanith Lee's The Silver Metal Lover - a novel I myself read when I was 16, an which has come out in new print several times since it first came out in the early 80's. It is a far better story than Meyer's and the heroine can actually do things on her own - but it still fulfills our needs to read about otherworldly gorgeous male characters who are above humanity, and about feelings, always about feelings.
Cross-posted in
biblio_life
