Generra Johnson
8 December 2012
ENG 3029-01
Professor Chandler
Research
Paper: Modern Romance and
Classical
Romance
Introduction:
There is classical romance and modern day romance.
Actually there are different types of romance genres. Today’s romances are
different from the romance of thirty years ago. For example in the book, Reading
the Romance, by Janice Radway the romances of 1984, would be
different but yet the same romances read by today’s readers of 2012. So today’s
readers still do read for the features of 1984, but they want more of a
modern-day twist to the story. In other words they want something new. Many
features of romances are the same, but some new features have been added. The
identities of men and women have changed since thirty years ago, but the
identities have also stayed the same. The purpose of my study is to find out
what elements of romance do women like in a romance.
What
I will and expect to show in this study is that women still like the features
of the past romances, and they also like modern features in today’s romances.
My work is important because it will see what features women like to read about
today. It will also show what women liked to read about thirty years ago. The
answer that I found in my research is that women still love the features of the
past like romance, or even boy meets girl. They even love how they have
problems, and the problems bring them even closer. As for the women of today,
they love drama and romance. It is all drama, drama, drama. They love the
thrill and the suspense in the story. I interviewed two women, one is a young
adult and the other is an adult.
Literature Review:
The other authors that have finds that are related to my
work are Janice Radway. She wrote the book, Reading the Romance,
and this work that she wrote does relate to my work. Her findings pointed out
why women read romance novels. One reason she found that women read romance
novels is because they wanted to get away from their daily lives, and make
their own world of comfort and enjoyment. As illustrated in Radway’s conclusion,
“In picking up a book, as they have so eloquently told us, they refuse
temporarily their family’s otherwise constant demand that they attend to the
wants of others even as they act deliberately to do something for their own
private pleasure. Their activity is compensatory, solitary space within an
arena where their self-interest is usually identified with the interest of
others and where they are defined as a public resource to be mined at will by
the family” (Radway 211). The second reason women read romance novels Radway
discovered is: because they want the attention. Plus they want to feel the
emotions that their everyday life does not have. “Romance reading supplements
the avenues traditionally open to women for emotional gratification by supplying
them vicariously with the attention and nurturance they do not get enough of in
the round of day-to-day existence” (Radway 212). Lastly, the reason that women
read romance novels is because they want to feel fulfilled and complete.
What I am going to do differently from Radway is first I
want to find out what plots women like in a romance novel. Another thing I am
going to do differently from Radway is find out the features that women like in
a romance novel. Radway also found those out in her surveys, but that was not
the point of her book. Her point was why women read romances.
Radway’s work relates to my work because during her
surveys she found out what features a woman likes in a romance novel. That is
my purpose to find out what features a woman likes in a romance novel. For
example Radway asked in one of her surveys, “Can you briefly describe what
makes romances more enjoyable than other kinds of books available today? ...
What are the three most important ingredients in a romance? Please pick the
three which you think are essential and rank them by placing a number 1 next to
the most important ingredient, a number 2 next to the second most important,
and so on” (Radway 230, 235). That is how Radway’s work relates to my work; she
made questions to find the features of a romance novel in her research.
Methods:
What I did with the two interviews was very different. Basically,
during the first interview I did it face-to-face with my subject. The subject
and I met at my house. I questioned my subject by using my computer. I had the
questions right in front of me on my computer, and I used it to question the
subject. The second subject, I was questioning over the telephone. I still had
the questions in front of me on my computer, and I questioned the second
subject. So in a way I did two different types of interviews: a face-to-face
interview and a telephone interview.
I chose my methods because they were the easiest to
accomplish. It was easy for my first subject to come to my house because she
lives near my house. As for the second subject, I was sick and it was also hard
for the second subject to come and meet me face-to-face. So we had an interview
over the telephone.
How I prepared to collect my data is by using a recorder
to record my interviews with the two subjects. I also collected my data by
typing it on the computer after I listened to it on the recorder. The reason I
prepared my data this way is because recording was the best way to keep the
information. I could keep the information on tape and listen to it many times.
Also I can make adjustments to my transcript at any time.
How I collected my data is I recorded the interviews on
the recorder. I recorded the interviews for thirty minutes each. I asked the
questions each in a row and in order. But I did miss one question. It was the
question on: How old were you when you started reading romance novels? Other
than that, all the questions were answered, with great length and great
honesty. Everything was collected smoothly, but the analysis had to be done a
few times.
How I analyzed the data is I just
read, and reread the data. Then I saw which questions matched the others, and
which data went together. I just read the data many times over, and I also see
which data goes together to match my purpose.
