A NEW DIRECTION for CHICK LIT by Rachel
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ABSTRACT CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING: A NEW DIRECTION FOR CHICK LIT by Rachel R. Rode Schaefer Focusing on novels published outside of the popular market, this thesis seeks to draw attention to work being published under the label of chick lit that subverts standard chick lit genre conventions. While much work has been and is being done that concentrates on popular market chick lit, such as Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) and Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City (1996), only cursory attention is being given to transnational, minority, and religious chick lit. This thesis considers chick lit within the larger history of women’s writing in order to contextualize the genre. Since chick lit has been connected to both feminism and post-feminism in its origins, consideration of this genre as a feminist genre focuses attention on how chick lit functions as a consciousness-raising genre. CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING: A NEW DIRECTION FOR CHICK LIT A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University In partial fulfillment of Master of Arts Department of English by Rachel R. Rode Schaefer Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2015 Advisor_________________________________ Dr. Madelyn Detloff Reader__________________________________ Dr. Mary Jean Corbett Reader__________________________________ Dr. Theresa Kulbaga © Rachel R. Rode Schaefer 2015 Table of Contents Introduction: Reading Chick Lit as Consciousness-Raising Novel ................................................ 1 Project Summary ......................................................................................................................... 1 History of Chick Lit .................................................................................................................... 4 Feminism vs. Post-Feminism ...................................................................................................... 6 Consciousness-Raising Novels ................................................................................................... 9 Summary of Chapter Arguments .............................................................................................. 11 Chapter 1: Cruel Optimisms in All Fall Down and Pointing with Lips ........................................ 13 All Fall Down ............................................................................................................................ 15 Pointing with Lips ..................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2: Feminism in Unlikely Spaces: Religious Chick Lit .................................................... 29 Chick Lit’s Religious Ambiguity .............................................................................................. 29 The J.A.P. Chronicles and The Matzo Ball Heiress .................................................................. 32 No Sex in the City ...................................................................................................................... 35 The Yada Yada Prayer Group and What a Girl Wants ............................................................. 38 Religious Chick Lit’s Feminist Leanings ................................................................................. 41 Chapter 3: Girls of Riyadh and the Transnational Conscience ..................................................... 47 Arab Reception ......................................................................................................................... 48 The Translation ......................................................................................................................... 51 Girls of Riyadh Critiques the Men of Riyadh ........................................................................... 56 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 62 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 67 iii Dedication For John, Lyna, Elijah, and Noah iv Acknowledgements I cannot express enough thanks to my committee for their continued support and encouragement: Dr. Madelyn Detloff, my committee advisor; Dr. Mary Jean Corbett; and Dr. Theresa Kulbaga. I offer my sincere appreciation for the learning opportunities provided by my committee. My completion of this project could not have been accomplished without the support of my classmates who read drafts and provided feedback and encouragement, Nicolyn, Dinidu, Allison, Catherine, Tyler, and Tory. To my children, Elijah and Noah – thank you for your patience in allowing me time away from you to research and write. Thanks to my parents, Roger and Cindy Rode, for your unwavering support and encouragement throughout the meandering path John and I embarked upon so many years ago. Thanks to my in-laws, Bob and Nancy Schaefer for the emotional support provided, not just for me but for John as well, as we have negotiated a few challenges over the past decade. Finally, to my inspiring, loving, and devoted husband, John: my deepest gratitude. Your encouragement and confidence when the times got rough are much appreciated. It was a great comfort and relief to know that you were beside me throughout this journey. v Introduction: Reading Chick Lit as Consciousness-Raising Novel “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species, determined by the particular quality of silliness that predominates in them — the frothy, the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic. But it is a mixture of all these — a composite order of feminine fatuity — that produces the largest class of such novels, which we shall distinguish as the mind-and-millinery species.” – George Eliot “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” Project Summary While both Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) and Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City (1996) are foundational chick lit texts, they have been in print for close to twenty years now. More analysis needs to be done on texts being published in the last ten years. Because of the increased diversity in the genre, the version of chick lit that Angela McRobbie (2004), Imelda Whelehan (2005), Caroline J. Smith (2008), and Stephanie Harzewski (2011) address, though still present, is no longer the only form of chick lit. Because authors are bringing greater variety to chick lit, it is emerging around the world in diverse and interesting expressions of the life of women. In “Belles in a Jar: Chick Lit is Evolving and How,” Rupa Gulab discusses the variety of careers chick lit heroines enjoy. As Gulab notes, the content of the Indian novels moves from Bollywood, the beauty industry, politics, and law (Gulab). American and British chick lit still center around the publishing industry, Hollywood, and the blogosphere with some changes emerging in subgenres such as Christian chick lit and Native American Chick lit. Christian chick lit novelist Kristin Billerbeck creates Ashley Stockingdale as a patent attorney in Silicon Valley. Moving away from the interpretation of product design, Native American novelist Dana Lone Hill’s heroine, Sincere Strongheart, is a single, alcoholic mother of three who quits her cashier job on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In the most recent book length publication on the topic, Chick Lit and Postfeminism (2011) Stephanie Harzweski acknowledges the emergence of diversity and minority contributions in saying: “Latina, African American, Indian American, and Asian American women authors graft traits of the chick lit formula with narratives of immigration, identity negotiations of first-generation children, and inner-city struggle” (188). However, Harzewski does not seriously address these novels, which often mimic white upper middle class chick lit by establishing their minority characters as wealthy college 1 graduates with corporate or white-collar careers. While portraying minority women as upwardly mobile middle class women who are educated serves a positive aspirational function, it also fails to reflect the struggle that is present for many of these women, thus curtailing thematic diversity in genre. Harzewski, moreover, focuses most prominently on novels written by upper-middle class white women, allowing only for the mention of the genre’s transnational diversity in her “Epilogue”: Initially intended to impart comic relief to single professional women, chick lit’s humor and lighthearted quality work to deflect attention from the wounded economy, high unemployment rates, and the health-care crisis…With the exception of the transnational novels of Kavita Daswani, chick lit, at least that published within the time frame of my study, does not more than superficially reflect, if at all, on its Western, urbocentric privilege. (Harzewski 191) As Harzewski states, the time frame of her study limits the literature she has the capacity to analyze. However, novels that should have been known to her like Rajaa Alsanea’s Girls of Riyadh (2005) and Anita Heiss’s Australian chick lit novels are completely ignored even in the epilogue, where she attempts to acknowledge the existence of diversity. Moving beyond the limitations of Harzewski’s study, my thesis examines contemporary texts, focusing on those texts that do more than superficially reflect on Western “urbocentric privilege.” While seeking out novels that portray characters that are not represented in Harzewski’s mainstream or popular market1 chick lit, I have encountered work that challenges