Romance is a
universal subject. Love stories are found in every country and culture and are
appreciated by all genders and ages, but why is there a penchant in literature
to end such tales in grief and misfortune? Today, happy romances only exist in
trashy novels, romantic comedies and telenovelas. Apparently, there is an
unwritten law that modern fictional couples cannot live happily ever after. What
provokes that fascination with doomed romances?
A friend
that holds a history degree told me that the concept of “romantic love” is
artificial, invented by medieval troubadours to earn a living. The idea of
“Courtly Love” was based on a simple recipe, a knight pledged his love to a
lady, but she had to be “somebody else´s lady.” Based on adultery, this
medieval concept of romance was a sin that could only bring tribulations to
these involved.
I had to
prove him wrong. Romantic love has existed prior to the troubadours. You find
it in mythology, universal folklore, even in the Bible. Some of those affairs
involved free people, others turned around adulterous couples, but even the
latter were allowed to enjoy some happiness. When he sleeps with the much-married
Bathsheba, King David is sinning against God and man. To add insult to injury,
David has her husband killed. The Lord is angry, the prophet is angry, lots of
bad things happen, including the death of Bathsheba‘s firstborn. David makes
public atonement, he is forgiven, marries Bathsheba, and they became the proud
parents of Solomon, the wisest of kings.
Moreover, if my friend was right and Courtly
Love had imposed a tradition of gloomy romances, we wouldn´t have great
literary love stories ending in bliss. However, such idyllic romances are not
very common in modern literature due to a couple of reasons.
1. Happy endings are an old fashioned ploy
Both, David Copperfield and War and Peace end in images of domestic harmony.
We are talking about two pillars of modern literature, yet when I point these
examples to cynical critics I get a “yes, but that is sooo Nineteenth Century.”
However, not every novel written in the 1800’s included joyful love affairs;
just think of Madame Bovary or Thomas
Hardy´s works.
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| Agnes and David Copperfield, a rare example of a happy marriage in fiction |
But there is some truth in the fact that happy romances fell out of fashion
during last century. Whenever love appears in Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway or
Edith Wharton novels, we know it will come to heartbreak and parting. Once, I
took a course in Modern English Literature just to find the reading list
plagued with tales of ill-fated lovers. Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier begins with the words: “This is the saddest story
I have ever heard.” The “sad story” being a combination of messy married life,
unhappy adultery and suicide. Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited begins with “Here my last love died,” and
although Charles Ryder is figuratively speaking, his memories depict a man who fails
in his search for love and finds solace in religion.
Compared to such tear-jerking novels,
The End of the Affair seemed almost jolly. Although as much a Catholic as
Evelyn Waugh was, Graham Greene viewed clandestine love with compassion. During
World War Two, writer Maurice Bendix has just made love to Sarah, his married
mistress, when a bomb falls upon his house and almost kills him. After the
incident, Sarah breaks up with him. Two years later, Bendix finds out that
fearing him dead, Sarah made a vow to renounce to her lover if God saved him.
Sarah is still a Catholic, won’t divorce her husband, but her love for Maurice
makes her fall in is arms again. Only death separates them. Yet, Sarah is such
a strong character that she comes triumphal at the end. Prior to her death, a series
of tiny miracles show her that God is not angry at her weakness, and, after her
passing, Maurice accepts the existence of a Divine Presence, which is what she
always wanted. I came to think that this novel almost had a happy ending.
2. “Lived happily ever after” endings
are no realistic therefore they should exist only in children’s and young
adults books.
The 21th century has definitely
declared war on romantic love. The scientific community goes through pains to
explain that romance is based on physiological reactions, and statistics tell
us that marriages are bound to last less than two decades. With such
information is understandable that we inhabit a romantically-challenged society
where happy marriages and fulfilling love stories are seen as impractical and
improbable, at least in adult literature.
We do find some promising love stories in YA Literature. Twilight’s Bella and Edward end up
together (plus a daughter), and white magic, goodness and love triumph at the
end of the Harry Potter saga. Twilight’s
cheerful conclusion brings to mind the last pages of typical “girly literature.”
In Victorian classics such as Heidi, Jane
Eyre and Louisa May Alcott´s works, heroines’ ordeals are ultimately
rewarded with blissful marriages and motherhood.
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| Professor Baher is Jo´s reward in Little Women |
But saying that romances in YA fiction must end in harmony would be a
false statement. It was certainly untrue
of the juvenile literature of my day. When I was a teenager (1970’s) books “for
girls” were cautionary tales with brooding finales. Titles such as My Darling, My Hamburger, Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones, and Scott
O’Dell’s Cathleen, Please Come Home showed
the reader that reckless love resulted in unplanned pregnancies, botched
up-abortions and forced marriages. Even in the controversial but less dramatic Forever, Judy Blume proved that young love
was a bittersweet experience. And the most romantic YA novel I read in my youth,
Bette Greene’s The Summer of my German Soldier
had me crying buckets before I reached the words “The End.”
At seventeen, I was a strong believer in rewarding passion and marital
bliss, but I couldn´t find it in books targeting my age, so I turned to bodice-
rippers. Heroines in Historical Romances
underwent rape, beatings, betrayal and other calamities, but, by the end of the
book, they had tamed their knights in soiled armors and were ready to start
families in castles, manors and cattle ranches. This of course proves right
those who claim that …
3. Corny romances belong strictly in trashy literature.
If you define Harlequin romances, and other single-title heirs to the
“bodice-ripper” as trash, then indeed love that lasts a lifetime is a trashy ruse.
But tragic romances were also present in
more mainstream trash. Vera Caspary’s emancipated heroines never found joy in
love, Jacqueline Susann´s protagonists were divided between those who died and
those who ended up with men who could never make them happy. And in the last
stages of Peyton Place, Allison
Mackenzie has returned to her hometown after her married boss breaks her heart.
Although romance is present in every genre and subgenre, everlasting
love only reigns supreme in the Romance category, a trait that forces the
subgenre to be classified as “low literature.” Funny, because Jane Austen´s
entire work turned around amorous dealings that would end when the
protagonists, having overcome all obstacles, were seen walking down the aisle.
Inspired by Austen, Georgette Heyers wrote a series of novels that became known
as “Regency romances.” But as everybody knows, Austen is a literary icon, and
Heyers a mere a formula-pusher. The only characteristics that bound them
together were historical settings, love as the plot´s core, and closing their
tales on a merry note. Would Jane Austen be considered a “serious writer”
today? I think not.
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| Why romantic bliss was fashionable in Jane Austen times and not in Contemporary Literature? |
4. A tragic love story is always more poignant and increases its chances
for success.
I have to agree since my favorite love stories of the last twenty years,
include two extremely sad bestsellers. John Le Carre is a famous writer of spy
novels, but in The Constant Gardener
he showed himself a master in the concoction of doomed romance. Although Tessa
is killed in the early stages of the novel, her memory and love propels her
husband to continue her research, clear her name and avenge her murder.
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| Tessa's ghost (Rachel Weisz) comes to comfort her husband (Ralph Fiennes) in The Constant Gardener. |
Michael Ondaatje’s The English
Patient is one of the most poignant love stories ever written, Anthony Minghella’s
film version is equally moving. I made the mistake of watching the film after
lunch on a working day. I was crying when I walked out of the cinema; sobbed
wildly on the cab that took me to school and had to sit in the teachers’ lounge
for almost twenty minutes until I collected myself enough to teach a class.
Heartrending as these two examples are, they do not hold a candle to my
favorite literary romance of all times, a sample of high literature that dares
to end in a hopeful note. Henryk Sienkiewicz is probably the best known Polish author
in the world. Prior to the invention of the word “bestseller,” he was writing
bestselling historical novels which crossed borders and oceans. His Quo Vadis is now a classic and merited
Sienkiewicz the 1905 Nobel Prize for Literature. I read Quo Vadis at age nine and have loved it since. It includes two
fantastic love stories: that of Vinicius and Ligia (the protagonists), and a
secondary but potent romance between Petronius (a historical character) and
Eunice, his slave girl.
When focusing on human love, Sienkiewicz is careful to show the
transforming and beneficiary power of an emotion that transcends religions and
social classes. Ligia not only converts Vinicius, a Roman patrician, to
Christianity, but her love rids him of his arrogance and cruel streak. Epicurean
and cynical Petronius finds true devotion in a humble slave who chooses to die
with him to escape the Emperor’s wrath. Unlike them, Ligia and Vinicius survive Nero´s
massacre, and go on to live together happily and forever away from Rome. Would
the novel be more “literary” if the protagonists had died or been separated eternally?
I think not.
Star-crossed
lovers add pathos and realism to a novel, but what about the reader’s needs? It
has been established that happy endings represent compensation for past
suffering and hope for a better future. Ian McEwen’s Atonement is an example of “high literature” therefore its bitter
finale has lovers Cee and Robbie apart from each other and dead. But when Briony,
who has caused their misfortunes, writes their story as a novel-within-a-novel,
she chooses an ending that has them living happily ever after. She claims it’s
a way to compensate them for all their trials. That is the supreme optimistic promise
of everlasting love even if it exists only between the pages of a book.
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| Briony grows up into a novelist who believes in happy endings |
What is
your favorite love story of all times? Does it end in a happy or sour note?
Does the ending affect the literary value of the novel? When you write love
stories, how do you expect them to finish?
