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Quote :Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Culture
Reading the Romance turns to Chodorow's revision of psychoanalytic theory in order to explain the construction of the particular desires that seem to be met by the act of romance reading. However, it additionally uses that theory to explore the psychological resonance of the romantic narrative itself for readers so constructed and engendered, a narrative that is itself precisely about the process by which female subjectivity is brought into being within the patriarchal family. Psychoanalysis is thus used also to explain why the story hails these readers, why they believe it possible to pursue their own pleasure by serving as witness to the romantic heroine's achievement of hers.
Prescription for Love. Spellbound and Seduced. Love's Secret Sniper. Who wouldn't want to write an academic study of romance novels?
Radway's study of female readers of romance novels is a good example of modern cultural studies in practice. First off, the topic is hardly the stuff of traditional literary analysis—romance novels aren't exactly next to Tolstoy on the shelf.
Another point about romance novels is their popularity: they may seem like mindless fluff that doesn't merit any real attention, but the very fact that they're so popular with their intended readership marks them out as an ideal subject for cultural studies. Radway's study is also a good example of cultural studies' theory grab-bag: here, psychoanalysis (in this case, object relations theory) turns out to be useful in thinking about the mass appeal of these narratives.
Rather than dismissing this branch of literature and its readership, then, Radway interviews the readers themselves and adopts a psychoanalytic approach so as to explore what underlying desires these novels may tap into. So next time you want to analyze For the Love of Scottie McMullet, look no further.