Since my previous post I’ve mulling over the so-called ‘passive’ heroine in romance novels. The stories I mentioned that didn’t have passive heroines in the previous post are fairly recent, say from the 1990 onwards. Also, the heroine I believe must be considered in context. The heroine in the Barbara Cartland novel discussed was an historical heroine. Would that account for her apparently passivity? Maybe. Then I thought of Georgette Heyer’s work and thought not so.
I have a weakness for Georgette Heyer’s Georgian/Regency romances.(Heyer died in 1974 so her works are much earlier than 1990s) They don’t have sex scenes all, but they evoke a period in time reminiscent of the great and wonderful Jane Austen. A fantasy world, I suppose, with particular tropes. (I am equally weak at the knees for Scottish historials with Lairds in them. Totally non-realistic. Yes, I know it’s all fantasy, right?).
So four books that I have been listening to on Audible a lot lately are, Venetia (abridged), Sylvester (abridged), The Quiet Gentleman and the Grand Sophy. I have lots of Heyer’s books in print, but these just happen to be on my Audible account and I replay them a lot. Venetia and Sylvester are read by Richard Armitage. Enough said. He does a brilliant job. Those two books got me breaking my Audible rule. I set out not wanting to buy books on Audible that I own in print. I confess I spanked myself thoroughly when I broke the rule, but you know…Richard Armitage!!%$$$###???
Then I decided I didn’t like the abridged books, so I bought The Quiet Gentleman (almost romantic suspense) and The Grand Sophy because they were heaps longer and I could go away into another world while driving long distances.
I thought about the heroines and about whether they were passive or not. There is definitely a spectrum here. Sophia Stanton-Lacey is the strongest, least passive and positively feminist heroine, in some regards. She is the centre of a whirlwind. The first time I read this book I quite missed that it was a romance, or meant to be. I had to read it again. I missed something. It’s quite a wonderful satire. Now more recently listening to it many times. I can’t count them. I’m weak. What can I say? Sophy stands up for herself. She locks horns. Charles her cousin gets quite riled with her. He is probably the most aggressive out of the heroes in these four novels. Mind you he has to be or he’d be pulp on the bottom of Sophy’s shoes. I could go into the plot a bit more but why spoil it for you. Just read the damn thing or listen to it.
Venetia on the other hand has lived a very retiring life. She pretends to be passive but she’s got steel in her, resisting the boring neighbour who wants to marry her. She falls in love with a rake. Who might be a libertine but is not overly aggressive. They form a lovely friendship until they are separated by interfering relatives. But when she finds out about her past, which has been kept for her, she just goes for the goal. She makes the rake propose to her, against his will. I wouldn’t call that passive.
Sylvester features Phoebe, who runs away when she thinks she’s going to be forced to marry Sylvester, a duke, who snubbed her. I wouldn’t say she was feisty exactly but she’s very unusual and when they are thrown together her magic explodes. She laughs at the duke, tells him what she thinks (a bit like Margaret in North and South) and she’s quite clever. They have an accord. Sylvester is not aggressive at all. He’s a gentle man, but very capable of fixing mishaps. Phoebe also has courage and gets into scrapes trying to do the right thing, to right the wrongs she has done.
In The Quiet Gentleman there is no aggressive hero. He’s so laid back, he’s almost effeminate. In fact, he doesn’t think much of Drusilla at all. She’s quite plain, short and plump. She isn’t trying to win him either. There’s is a slow and gentle coming together.Drusilla is practical and also quite determined to prevent, St Erth being murdered. It is really quite interesting really. I have listened (as well as read) this story and I don’t know when the transition occurs. It’s just a slow warming of him to her. Apparently he’s so gorgeous he was out of her league in the romance stakes and yet…without trying in any way to fix him, he falls for her. While Drusilla seems a bit laid back, she rears up at the end and tells them all what’s what. I don’t consider Drusilla passive, but realistic. This story is also an excellent satire and Heyer is great with her character descriptions. What a gifted writer.
So I don’t think historical heroines in romance novels are passive either. Of course, there are some. But don’t say they are all PASSIVE. You’re wrong!
If you are a romance reader or writer, please consider taking my survey. It’s for my PhD on Feminism in popular romance fiction. Just click here for more details.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 
Lots of Heyer’s heroines are great from an “active heroine” perspective. I just have big, big problems with the classism and racism, which have become increasingly obvious to me over the years.
[I discuss them in more detail towards the end of this essay, if you’re interested: http://jprstudies.org/2013/06/georgette-heyer-the-nonesuch-of-regency-romance-by-laura-vivanco/ ]
Thank you! I’ll check it out. I have to compartmentalise Regency romances generally because they are by nature not realistic, a sort of fantasy that excludes the nastier side of life.
Laura and Donna, for once I am in complete agreement with what has been said in some comments on a post on Georgette Heyer. The ones I have come across are mostly fulsome praise from avid readers, with no apparent criticisms of the reactionary class and sex role perspective.
Of course, the debate about whether or not romance, in excluding the nastier side of life (including the imperfection of all human relationships, especially love ones) serves a reactionary function is the fundamental issue at stake in the ongoing discussions on the status of romance.
I write gothic novels which try to extend the barriers of the genre, by the way.
I am perturbed at how many readers (US ones particularly) seem to confuse fantasy and escapism with the true Regency era (and even say they would like to have been alive then, presumably assuming that they would have been members of the tiny British upper class).
I am also dimayed at how few readers are prepared to admit to any disgust over behaviour of the heroes, ie, the awful would be rapist in ‘Devil’s Cub’ and the bullying Sherry in ‘Friday’s Child’. Why is this? To say that they were published decades ago is not a good excuse; Galsworthy of the same era, hardly the most liberal of writers about woman’s role, condemns rape in marriage, for instance.
I’ll certainly follow your link, Laura.
Thank you for the comment Lucinda. I love Regency romances but I do accept that they are a type of fantasy because they don’t include the nastier elements of that society ordinarily. Some do though. I think this is modeled on Jane Austen’s work because she was renown for depicting everyday life without the politics or much focus on the working classes or poor etc. Her readership would have been her own set, middle and upper class literate readers. Heyer certainly expanded the genre considerably and is well loved for it. Not all heroes are to one’s taste. I’m currently reading Woodwiss’s novel that caused so much consternation in academics. So far I’m not enamoured of the hero in that book either.
I do like Elizabeth Gaskel’s work because she does focus on the poor, particularly in North and South. I haven’t read Mary Barton but I believed she copped a lot of flack for being too far on the side of the proletariat and not the capitalists.