A Parody of Love: the Narrative Uses of Rape in Popular Romance

Publication year
2012
Journal
Journal of Popular Romance Studies
Volume
2.2
Comment

From the abstract:

This paper [...] asserts that the presence of rape functions as a parodic parallel to the violence of falling in love. Divided into three types, the rape scene occurs as a result of the way the hero perceives the heroine and appropriates her identity. These types are: the Rape of Mistaken Identity, the Rape of Possession, and the Rape of Coercion or "Forced Seduction." Each performs a version of the epistemological and ontological questions that arise from an encounter with the Other.