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Types of Romance a. Gothic b. Historical c. Contemporary/Modern
a. Gothic • The settings are usually in distant regions and the stories feature dark and compelling characters. They became popular in the late 19th century and usually had a sense of transcendence, supernatural, and irrationality.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte SUMMARY Jane Eyre is the story of a young orphaned girl, who, in the first phases of the book is mistreated and abused, starved and malnourished, at the orphan house of Lowood. An epidemic of typhus sweeps through the place, taking away her few friends, including Helen Burns, the best Jane had. She thus decides to leave Lowood at eighteen, and fend for herself with a new job as a governess at Thornfield Hall. The job she has accepted to carry out involves teaching a young girl,Adèle Varens, daughter of the owner of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester. Jane meets Mr Rochester by chance one night, as he falls off his horse on the way to the Hall. The two are immediately interested in each other.
Rochester realises he is able to count on Jane for almost anything, as one night the curtains of his room mysteriously catch fire. Jane puts out the fire and saves Rochester, and the pair fall for each other. Even when he invites rich dames to flirt at his house, he only has eyes for Jane. In the meantime, Jane hears strange noises in the attic, and notices Grace Poole, a servant, behaving oddly. Richard Mason arrives during this time, a man Rochester seems to know and be afraid of. In the middle of the night, Mason gets stabbed and bitten. Jane tends to his wounds and Rochester sneaks him out of the house. Rochester and Jane attempt to get married in the chapel, but two men interrupt the ceremony, claiming Rochester is already married. Rochester reluctantly leads the wedding party to the attic, which holds Bertha Mason, Rochester’s insane, previous wife. She is the one responsible for attempting to burn Rochester in his bed, and for attempting to kill her brother Richard.
Jane, in shock, leaves Thornfield and travels to Morton, a town in which her uncle Mr. Eyre lives. This plan doesn’t go well, however, as she must beg for food and sleep by the side of the road in the beginning. There she meets her cousins, Diana, Mary and the clergyman St. John. The latter wants to be more than just “cousins” with Jane, so they have a small fling that does not last. As uncle Eyre dies, Jane inherits a bit of his fortune. She travels back to Thornhill, to find out what’s up with Rochester. After attempting to find her, he has shut himself in the house alone. Bertha then burns down Thornhill and commits suicide, but the fire loses Rochester an eye, and blinds him in the other. When Jane finds him, he begs her to come to France with him and pretend to be married, but she refuses, in the hopes that he will marry her for real. He does! They live happily ever after, and Rochester gains his sight back. Meanwhile, St. John works himself to death as a missionary in India.
Analysis The writer utilises tone to express and induce in audiences admiration for the character of Jane Eyre. The writer’s opinion of Jane is transparent in Mr Rochester’s words “You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,—delicate and aërial.” Given that Jane Eyre is told through Jane’s perspective, one could regard the rest of the characters as modes through which Charlotte Brontë can express her positive opinions about Jane. Further, the image of “aërial” further drives home the sympathy and admiration that the writer conveys through Rochester’s remarks. The audience is thus brought to feel the selfsame admiration of the writer towards the novel’s main character.
Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted in school at Roe Head in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the sisters opened a school, but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to writing and they each first published in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected by publishers, her second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. The sisters admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were celebrated in London literary circles. Charlotte Brontë was the last to die of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly after her marriage in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855, almost certainly from hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy which causes excessive nausea and vomiting.[a]
b. Historical • Historical romance takes place in times long past and appears romantic due to the adventure and wildness of the time. This also provides value and meaning to the lifestyle of the characters.
Rob Roy starts with the main character, Frank Osbaldistone being called home by his father after writing to senior Osbaldistone that he no longer wishes to work for his father’s company. When Mr. Osbaldistone gives Frank the option of what he would like to do, he gives his father unreasonable options so Mr. Osbaldistone declares that Frank is to leave first thing the next morning to his uncle’s home in York. Along the way he meets a man who is carrying a large package. This man is very uncomfortable and weary of Franks constant questioning. They stop for the night in Dunham where Frank will meet Rob “Macgregor” Campbell, later to be known as Rob Roy. They have a short conversation before Frank heads off. He reaches his destination the next day to find his cousins and Diana Vernon. After the dinner on the first night at the estate, Franks walks past a garden on the way back to his room and meets Andrew Fairservice who will join him on his later journeys. The next day when Frank goes riding with Diana, she informs him that he has been accused of robbery by the man he travelled to the estate with, Mr. Morris. When they meet, Morris admits he has no real claim against Frank, he was just fearful of the people who really did it. A witness, Rob Campbell testifies and tells the judge that the robber could not have been Frank. Frank continues to live at the house for months, mainly talking to Diana and Rashleigh. He does not like Rashleigh but this is ok as he would be sent to Mr. Osbaldistone in return for Frank. A couple weeks after Rashleigh left, Frank is informed that his father has travelled to Holland and Rashleigh has been left in complete control of his father’s business. This worries Frank greatly and Diana tells him that he should return to London and never return. To this, Frank does get hurt because he had fallen in love with her over time. By this time Rashleigh has moved to Scotland and when Frank is informed of this, he instantly leaves for Glasgow too, with Andrew as his guide.
Once in Glasgow, Frank meets Rob Campbell again, this time to be invited to his house. They talk and Campbell persuades Frank to go to a college and relax for a few days before they leave to fix the business. While walking around the campus, Frank runs into Rashleigh. They engage in battle where Frank gets a bad wound but Rashleigh receivers the worst of the blows. After this, Frank talks with one of Andrew’s informants, Jarvie, where he learns that Campbell is actually a highway robber and it was instead him who stole Morris’s package. Jarvie also knows that Rashleigh cheated Mr. Osbaldistone out of several bills in order to cause and uprising in Scotland. Next, Frank leaves Glasgow with Jarvie and Andrew, hoping to hunt Rashleigh down and return Mr. Osbaldistone money. On this mission they encounter several run-ins with English soldiers many times. When Frank finally gives up and goes back to Osbaldistone hall (with all his cousins and uncle dead, the estate is now owned by Frank). He is met by Diana Vernon and her father here, seeking refuge. But even here he is once again arrested, this time it is by Rashleigh. He takes not only Frank, but Diana and her father too. Just as they are setting off in the wagon chaos erupts. Rob “Campbell” Roy stabs Rashleigh and Rob’s troops kill all the other soldiers. In Rashleigh’s last words, he tells Frank that he has always and will always hate him. Diana and her father fled to France and stayed there until her father died, leaving Diana on her own. She contacts Frank and informs him of the news. Naturally Frank talks to his father and decides to pursue Diana and make her his wife. They get married and live happy lives until Diana Vernon dies.
Biography of Sir Walter Scott Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771, in a third-floor apartment on College Wynd in the Old Town, Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the University of Edinburgh (Old College).[2] He was the ninth child (six having died in infancy) of Walter Scott (1729–1799), a member of a cadet branch of the Clan Scott and a Writer to the Signet, by his wife Anne Rutherford, a sister of Daniel Rutherford and a descendant of both the Clan Swinton and the Haliburton family (the descent from which granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in Dryburgh Abbey).[3] Walter was thus a cousin of the property developer James Burton (died 1837), born "Haliburton", and of his son the architect Decimus Burton.[4] Walter subsequently became a member of the Clarence Club, of which the Burtons were also members.[5][6]
A childhood bout of polio in 1773 left Scott lame,[7] a condition that would much affect his life and writing.[8] To improve his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders, at his paternal grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, by the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home.[9] Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny Scott and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that later marked much of his work. In January 1775, he returned to Edinburgh, and that summer with his aunt Jenny took spa treatment at Bath in Somerset, Southern England, where they lived at 6 South Parade.[10] In the winter of 1776, he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a water cure at Prestonpans the following summer.[9] • In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to prepare him for school and joined his family in their new house, one of the first to be built in George Square.[2] In October 1779, he began at the Royal High School in Edinburgh (in High School Yards). He was by then well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books. He was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. In 1783, his parents, believing he had outgrown his strength, sent him to stay for six months with his aunt Jenny at Kelso in the Scottish Borders: there he attended Kelso Grammar School, where he met James Ballantyne and his brother John, who later became his business partners and printers.[11]
c. Contemporary/Modern • Contemporary romance focuses on a love relationship and has a happy ending. There are two ways these romance novels are written: as a series or category romance ( the author writes a succession of books that fit a theme or follow a storyline) or as a single-title romance.
Summary of His Girl Friday by Howard Hawks (COMEDY-ROMANCE)
SUMMARY Ace reporter Hildy Johnson returns to The Morning Post to notify Walter Burns – the Post’s Managing Editor and Hildy’s ex-husband – that she plans to quit the paper, move to Albany, and marry insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin. Burns exhibits few scruples as he attempts to disrupt this plan. While breaking up Hildy’s engagement and remarrying her himself is a secondary goal, Burns is more immediately concerned with convincing Hildy to interview condemned murderer Earl Williams; write a front page story sympathetic to Williams; get Williams reprieved; and get the sheriff and mayor (running for re-election on a law-and-order ticket) kicked out of office. In service of these ambitions, Burns deploys (among other dirty tricks) a pickpocket, a vamp, and $450 in counterfeit money. Most of the movie takes place in the press room of the criminal courts building, the sole location used in The Front Page, the stage play on which the film is based. Each plot twist introduces new members of a skilled ensemble of character actors. The last character, an incorruptible buffoon of a deus ex machina named Pettibone, turns out to be the ‘unseen power’ that watches over Hildy, Walter, and The Morning Post.
ANALYSIS As a film about a career woman, His Girl Friday anticipates the movement of women into the workforce during the 1940s in numbers that would not be matched for 30 years. During the Second World War, male military conscription, and the expanding wartime economy, made women’s employment an economic necessity and a patriotic duty.
Biography of Howard Hawks Howard Winchester Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana. He was the first-born child of Frank Winchester Hawks (1865–1950), a wealthy paper manufacturer, and his wife, Helen Brown (née Howard; 1872–1952), the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Hawks's family on his father's side were American pioneers and his ancestor John Hawks had emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630. The family eventually settled in Goshen and by the 1890s was one of the wealthiest families in the Midwest, due mostly to the highly profitable Goshen Milling Company.[2]
Howard Hawks's interest and passion for aviation led him to many important experiences and acquaintances.[13] In 1916, Hawks met Victor Fleming, a Hollywood cinematographer who had been an auto mechanic and early aviator. Hawks had begun racing and working on a Mercerrace car—bought for him by his grandfather, C.W. Howard—during his 1916 summer vacation in California. He allegedly met Fleming when the two men raced on a dirt track and caused an accident.[14] This meeting led to Hawks's first job in the film industry, as a prop boy on the Douglas Fairbanks film In Again, Out Again (on which Fleming was employed as the cinematographer) for Famous Players-Lasky.[15] According to Hawks, a new set needed to be built quickly when the studio's set designer was unavailable, so Hawks volunteered to do the job himself, much to Fairbanks's satisfaction. He was next employed as a prop boy and general assistant on an unspecified film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. (Hawks never named the film in later interviews and DeMille made roughly five films in that time period). By the end of April 1917, Hawks was working on Cecil B. DeMille's The Little American.[15] Hawks then worked on the Mary Pickford film The Little Princess, directed by Marshall Neilan. According to Hawks, Neilan did not show up to work one day, so the resourceful Hawks offered to direct a scene himself, to which Pickford consented.[16]
Hawks began directing at age 21 after he and cinematographer Charles Rosher filmed a double exposure dream sequence with Mary Pickford. Hawks worked with Pickford and Neilan again on Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley before joining the United States Army Air Service. Hawks's military records were destroyed in the 1973 Military Archive Fire, so the only account of his military service is his own. According to Hawks, he spent 15 weeks in basic training at the University of California in Berkeley where he was trained to be a squadron commander in the air force. When Pickford visited Hawks at basic training, his superior officers were so impressed by the appearance of the celebrity that they promoted him to flight instructor and sent him to Texas to teach new recruits. Bored by this work, Hawks attempted to secure a transfer during the first half of 1918 and was eventually sent to Fort Monroe, Virginia. The Armistice was signed in November of that year, and Hawks was discharged as a Second Lieutenant without having seen active duty.[17
Activity!!! 1. In your own understanding, what is Romance? 2.Make a graphic organizer showing the three types of Romance. 3. Provide at least 2 examples ( Literary Piece ) of each type of Romance.
