Popular literature: genres, trends, and cultural impact

Popular Literature

The purpose of the present paper is to analyze Danielle Steel's book "Bungalow 2." The main theme under discussion is the role of women. The main thesis is that while women can be powerful and successful in their own terms, they still face tremendous pressure from males. Consequently their road to happiness becomes even harsher.

Steel tells the story of Tanya Harris, a midlife house wife who enjoys her living and her own status. She is happily married and in love with her husband, has two adolescent children and has a nice career as a freelance writer. One day she receives an offer from her agent to go to Hollywood and write a story for a movie. Although this implies working with an award winning producer called Douglas Wayne she initially refuses the offer. Accepting would mean having to move away for nine months and she fears that this might interfere with her happy family life.

Right from the beginning the author draws attention to a rather sad, nevertheless real fact which refers to the tensions which occur in a woman's life between having a successful career and a happy family. Apparently it is very difficult, if not impossible for a woman to be able to have both. The denouement of the book under discussion is actually a proof regarding this statement. It also seems that men generally speaking do not have to face this type of conflict in their lives and that they are able to enjoy both successful careers and happy family lives. Nevertheless it takes two to tango, therefore at this point we could ask ourselves some questions regarding the social dynamics involved in creating and maintaining a happy family. Is the role of the woman within the family heavier than the one of the man? Is she expected to give more? What is the mechanism which prevents the woman from achieving success at all the levels of her life? If a successful career implies spending less time at home, why does this seem to affect women more than men? Obviously the male and female roles are not equal, neither within the family, nor in the broader social context. But who or what is to be blamed for this? The patriarchal values of the contemporary society or the women themselves for going along with the entire matter? Let us take a look at how the story of Tanya Harris develops.

She eventually decides to accept the offer her agent had presented her with. While doing so she is aware of the fact that it might cause damage to her marriage, but she can not resist the idea of accepting an opportunity which comes once in a life time. We see that there is a contradiction between two notions of success. On the one hand, Tanya has achieved success in her personal life. After twenty years of marriage she is still in love with her husband. They have two lovely adolescent children and financially they are well off. On the other hand she has a good career working as a freelance writer as well. But what is the problem then? The problem is that she is offered an opportunity to do something really important, working at a level which is far higher than the one she has been working at. In other words she is given the opportunity to demonstrate and achieve her true potential. Naturally this is a matter regarding self development and achieving happiness through it. It is at this point that we understand that the happy family and the freelance career were not enough in order to make her feel complete as a person. When accepting the offer she is aware of the fact that she is putting her family at risk. The fact that she is willing to take this risk has various implications. One is that she strongly believes in herself. Another one is that she believes in her husband's love and in their strength as a couple. A third one is that she thinks she owes it to herself to try and surpass her own condition.

The fact that the husband will end up asking for a divorce proves that their love and strength as a couple were not powerful enough in order to face this challenge. One could ask himself at this point whether the same exact situation would have had the same consequences for the husband. Naturally the divorce issue was based on problems with trust and faith in the partner and it probably might have worked in the same manner for both the involved parties. However, the factual situation remains the same and the conclusion is that Tanya sacrificed her marriage for her career. It must be underlined that she did it unwillingly. Even more, she fought in order to protect her family resisting the temptation of starting another story with a very interesting and successful man, the award winning producer whom she worked with.

Another issue that we could take into consideration is represented by the couple relationship. Tanya and her husband had a very nice family, three children and were still in love after twenty years spent together. It is safe to say that such a situation is very difficult to obtain in real life. Couples fall apart sooner or later. So we might ask ourselves if the main character in our story was not crazy out of her mind in order to put this situation at risk. Since the stake was the development of the self then we can give only one answer and that is "no."

It is true that distance harms couples. Since Tanya has to move to L.A. In order to complete the script for the movie she can only come home during the weekends. It is true that her husband is left alone with the children, but she is also alone and away from her children and partner. Therefore the situation should be equally difficult. Why does she resist temptation while he does not? And is this situation most likely to be generally applied or is it something that happened under these particular circumstances? Did this happen because the male felt that he had been abandoned? The dynamics within a couple are extremely complex and intricate so it is not easy to answer the question. This may be just an isolate case, just like it might be an applicable to a large number of situations. It is nevertheless true that in a society where the patriarchal values are extremely important and determine important behaviour patterns. From this point-of-view it might be stated that Tanya was perceived as having abandoned her family, which made it somehow legitimate fro her husband to go and find another partner.

Leaving all this aside there is only one thing which matters and this is the fact that her choice to move to L.A. In order to develop her career cost her marriage. Would it be then safe to state that her action as a woman who decided to follow her instinct and develop her career to a level which was higher than the one of her husband was sanctioned by him through the destruction of the relationship? The answer is "yes."

A further issue that we could discuss is represented by the relation of dominance which is installed between the sexes. Let us analyze it in the context of Danielle Steel's book. At the beginning of the story the power relation between the two partners is an equal one. He is a lawyer and she is a housewife. Obviously she is a housewife by choice and she is happy with that. They do not have financial issues and they have three marvellous children. They are both happy. Then she decides to change her mind about her previous choice and for the first time in her life she focuses more on herself than on her family. Naturally there is a strong tension between the two statuses she has to manage, the wife and mother on the one hand and the woman on the other hand. When choosing to focus more on her career she obviously decides to put more emphasis on herself as a woman than on herself as a wife and mother.

But is this really so? Is it even fair to judge the situation from this point-of-view? One might argue that this is exactly what she does. Others might nonetheless state that it is impossible for a woman to detach herself from her role of mother and wife, especially when she is happily married. It might very well be argued that she is actually undergoing a lot of pain in making that choice. She does all the efforts in her power to keep her family united while trying to also be faithful to her goals as a person, independently of the family context. However, realistically speaking the choice that she makes is probably perceived as being selfish. She detaches from her role as a mother and wife and this is probably perceived as a threat from the part of her male partner. A very sad supposition that we could make is that he will punish her for her choice. This may not be a rational and voluntary choice on his behalf, but only an instinctual, subconscious one. However the case, the situation does not change and the denouement of the story remains the same. She achieves success outside of the context which seems to have determined her value and her identity entirely (wife of & #8230; and mother of…). By doing this she demonstrates her independence, the trust in her own forces, etc. however, her fact is also perceived as causing a shift in the dynamics referring to the power relation within a couple. In other words she is perceived as becoming stronger than her partner. The consequence is that the partner will want to reacquire his previous status and punish her for her unexpectedly brave behaviour. In this manner what he hopes to do is to achieve a strong dominance upon her.

This is perhaps an exaggerated manner to look at things and some might accuse us of adopting a feministic view which defends women in an unbalanced manner. Facts speak for themselves and the break up of a family is painful for both partners. Can she be blamed for the breakup? Yes and no.

She can not be blamed for the break up because she did nothing wrong in accepting a work opportunity which shows only once in a life time. Being away from her family was of course painful. She was aware of the risks and one can not say that she did not do everything in her power in order to keep her family from breaking apart. It is also safe to say that it was her husband's moral duty to support her and her choice.

She can be blamed for the breaking up because it is an universally accepted fact the one that distances hurt relationships. We can be idealistic and think that in our case this will not happen, but unfortunately statistics is very powerful and rarely have couples succeeded in remaining together once one of the partners had to leave the other for work or other reasons. Tanya on the other hand had been married for a long time, she had three adolescent children and she was still in love with her partner. She had all the reasons to believe that, under the circumstances in which she had been offered a one life time opportunity to do something grandiose for herself, her partner would do nothing else but support her.

Ignoring all the male-female dynamics which are installed in the contemporary society it is safe to say that in any type of relationship, beyond being men and women we are all people, individuals with strengths and weaknesses. Let us analyze the story from this perspective. We have two partners who contribute equally to their relationship. Consequently they are both happy. All of a sudden one decides to contribute less to the relationship and more the their own development. The other partner decides to find a more suitable companion and the relationship ends.