Oh yes, yet another novel from days of yore! Yet another novel having fun with the conventions of romances! Sensing a theme in my class reading?
The Female Quixote tells the story of Arabella, who has been raised in seclusion in a castle by her father, a Marquis in self imposed exile. Her education consisted primarily of romance novels, and so she imagines herself as the heroine in a romance novel to a degree that makes her seem utterly bonkers.
For example: She assumes that a young gardener at her estate is, in fact, a “Person Of Quality” who is concealed in such a position so that he might be nearer to her. When he’s caught trying to steal a carp, she instead believes that his passion for her has led to great despair, and he is going to drown himself.
She believes that any man she meets is in love with her. If one of her lovers takes ill—which happens—she is certain she can cure him with her command. She is constantly in a terror that she will be kidnapped. Anything that happens to her is seen through the lens of a romance plot.
The romances she read are French ones that were set in the Middle Ages or even Antiquity, and I was fascinated to see how certain plot conventions have changed. (The term “romance” has many meanings, and is really problematic, which is a blog post for another time, or perhaps even my thesis. But I digress…) According to Arabella, the gravest offence a man can commit is to tell her he loves her—I know! It’s a startling contrast to today’s romances when the hero confessing his love to the heroine is the climax of the book.
Personal aside: When my dear fiancé had yet to say the L Word to me, my mother jokingly offered to “stage a kidnapping” aka engineer a black moment so that he would say it! See above about fears of kidnapping, and thinking life is like a romance novel, etc. Such a dramatic scheme was, fortunately, not necessary.
So The Female Quixote mocks romances, particularly the notion that its readers will assume that life is truly like that. For some reason, it is a Serious Concern that isn’t often voiced about readers of science fiction, the bible, murder mysteries, etc. Why is that?
