Who Says Women Can’t Love and Empower?: How Representations of Women Have Progressed in Medical Romance Fiction

Author
Degree
Honors Thesis
University
Eastern Kentucky University
Publication year
2023
Comment

Here's the abstract:

Throughout history, the representation of women in medical romance fiction has changed with the times. While an individual assumption can be pulled from different time periods, a chronological analysis of Doctor Zay, Promise the Doctor, A Princess in Theory, and The Love Hypothesis was conducted to show the changes of women’s empowerment, but also how women’s empowerment has stayed the same through the medical romance genre. A historical analysis was done to incorporate background information on what was going on during those times along with bridging the gap between the medical romance novels.

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Doctor Zay is a novel written by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps in 1882. (11)

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Promise the Doctor is a Harlequin medical romance novel written by Marjorie Norrell in 1966. (19)

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A Princess in Theory, written by Alyssa Cole in 2018. (23)

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The final novel to be discussed is The Love Hypothesis written in 2021 by Ali Hazelwood. (28)