Mills and Fur Feminism and Femininity in the Supernatural Romance Nicola Burke A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Western Sydney University 2020 ©Nicola Burke Acknowledgements To my parents, Barbara and Stephen, thank you for over thirty years of unwavering support and encouragement, from pre-school to postgrad. Thank you also to Dominic and Bernice, the cat cousins, and Miss Baby Yoda. I am eternally grateful for Ella and The Committee for carrying me into 2020 with the massive outpouring of love and support I needed to help me finish. I would also like to thank my supervisory panel Dr. Dianne Dickenson, Dr. Penelope Rossiter and Dr. Christopher Conti for their guidance and support through this (long) process. For Wendy, as promised. And for Marie. Until the end of the line Until the end of the line Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3 Reading the Supernatural Romance................................................................................................9 Transitional Girls: Girlhood in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries .........16 ‘Slippery and Amorphous’: Adolescent and Young Adult Literature .......................................25 Outline of Chapters .........................................................................................................................28 Chapter 1: From Medieval Chivalry to Chick lit: The History of the Romance Novel ....... 38 The Development of the Genre: From the Medieval Romance to the Twentieth Century ......40 Tales of Chivalry and Enchantment: The Medieval Romance .....................................................................42 The Literary Salon, French Fairy Tale and Amatory and Sensation Fiction ................................................44 Pamela and Pride and Prejudice: Step-Parents of the Romance .................................................................52 Heaving Bosoms and Ripped Bodices: The Twentieth Century Romance ................................62 The Early Twentieth Century .......................................................................................................................63 Harlequin, Mills & Boon and the Fabio Bodice Rippers .............................................................................66 Sex and the Single Girl in the City’s Diary: The Rise of Chick lit ..............................................................73 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................79 Chapter 2: Sexy Byronic Werewolves: The Contemporary Supernatural Romance ........... 82 Sexy Werewolves and the Byronic Vampire: The Gothic Novel, Sensation Fiction and the Supernatural ....................................................................................................................................84 Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: Rochester, Heathcliff and the Byronic Hero ......................................89 The Twentieth-Century Supernatural Romance ...........................................................................................95 Twilight, Mummy Porn and the Romance ..................................................................................101 Bodice Rippers and Mummy Porn: Female Sexuality and the Feminine Text ..........................................106 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................108 Chapter 3: Beautiful/Beastly: Female Sexuality, the Supernatural and Animal Bridegroom Tales .................................................................................................................. 110 Beauty and the Wolf: The Supernatural Romance as Animal Bridegroom Tale ...................113 Erotic lycanthropy and psychic sexuality: Wolves of Mercy Falls and Low Red Moon ............................116 Sisters Red and Red Riding Hood: Sex and Lycanthropic Discovery ........................................................124 Forever Love: The Supernatural Pseudo-marriage ...................................................................133 Wolves of Mercy Falls and Low Red Moon: The Supernatural, Psychic Connection ................................135 Shared Secrets: Red Riding Hood and Sisters Red .....................................................................................139 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................144 Chapter Four: How to be a Contemporary Domestic Goddess: Femininity and Domesticity ................................................................................................................................................ 147 Family and Femininity are Produced in the Kitchen. ................................................................150 Grace Brisbane, Isabel Culpeper and the Kitchen as Commentary ............................................................151 The Monetisation of Domesticity: Low Red Moon and Debby Hood ........................................................157 Cooking versus Hunting: Sisters Red and Femininity ................................................................................160 Domestic Femininity, Criticism and Red Riding Hood ..............................................................................166 How to Domesticate your Werewolf ............................................................................................171 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................178 Chapter 5: All the Better to Smell You With: Scent, Gender and Sexuality....................... 180 Food and Forests: Gender, Scent and Domesticity ....................................................................183 Sickly Sweet: Perfumes and Inauthentic Femininity ..................................................................................191 All the Better to Smell you With: Scent, Sex and Lycanthropy ................................................198 Malodour and Monstrosity: Werewolves, Villainy and the Female Creature.........................203 Female Lycanthropy and Illness in Wolves of Mercy Falls........................................................................203 Something Smells Off: Scent and Villainy ................................................................................................209 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................213 Chapter 6: Juicy Morsels: Food, Sex and Gender .............................................................. 215 Doing Domesticity: Femininity, Baking and Nostalgia ..............................................................218 Low Red Moon and Sisters Red: Baking and Family .................................................................................219 The Complicated Domesticity of Wolves of Mercy Falls and Red Riding Hood .......................................224 The Skinny-Glutton and the Double bind ...................................................................................229 Food, Sex and the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ Fairy Tale ............................................................237 All the Better to Eat You With: The Edible Adolescent ............................................................................239 Abominable Appetites: Sex, Hunger and Shelby .......................................................................................248 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................251 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 254 Avenues for Further Research ....................................................................................................................268 Reference List ........................................................................................................................ 272 Abstract The contemporary supernatural romance genre is frequently dismissed as one dimensional and low quality; a genre for an undiscerning adolescent female audience that reproduces traditional and conservative ideologies of gender and sexuality. In this thesis I contest this dismissal of the supernatural romance, arguing that the genre contains multiple representations of femininity and female sexuality. These representations expose and rehearse the complex attitudes surrounding and held by adolescent girls regarding sexuality, femininity and romantic relationships in the early twenty-first century. My research focuses on analysis of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce (2010), Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin