Before Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre, lovers in women's popular fiction were humble, devoted
gentlemen. Her darkly mysterious hero and frail but courageous
heroine represented an alarming revolution. Heathcliff, the even
darker hero of her sister Emily's Wuthering Heights, is a
figure of fierce passions and monumental suffering who stands
apart from society (as does Rochester of Jane Eyre) because his
beloved had rejected him. Both represent an alienation from
conventional society which echoes in modern genre heroes.
Criticized at the time as "dogged, brutal and morose," these
novels have become the models for romances about emotionally
tortured heroes.
What's The Appeal?
The emotionally tortured hero, although sometimes
criticized as being negative, is not an anti-hero. The anti-hero
is disloyal, often cowardly and has failure as a vocation. The
emotionally tortured hero is more like Ernest Hemingway's "code
hero"—a man's man.
He is a sportsman, highly successful, and unapologetic for his
manliness.
Sometimes called the Alpha Male, he has a sensitive
nature that was misunderstood in the past, often by his mother
but usually by his first lover. He was greatly wounded by the
rejection of his love and has an untamed fierceness that is
always at war with the accepted order of society.
Unlike the
anti-hero, the emotionally tortured hero appeals precisely
because he seems negative but is not.
Often powerful, he lives
under a thundercloud of guarded feelings. His inner life centers
on self-sacrifice, loyalty and courage. The heroine senses these
traits, but only witnesses negative behavior: moodiness,
jealously, anger. She's drawn to him but unsure whether to trust
her feelings more than the empirical evidence. Sensing that he
has a lost and emotionally fragile side, she believes that the
woman who recognizes his true self will be rewarded with a
blazing, undying love. It's this promise, never openly stated,
that appeals to her.
One psychological theory holds that genre
fiction serves as a waking dream in which the reader works out
aspects of her inner life. This "dark male" may symbolize an
inner quality the reader subconsciously wants to rescue:
assertiveness, a sense of adventure, independence from social
conventions, or a capacity for great sexual passion. By the end
of the story, the heroine discovers his hidden ability to love.
His passion fuels her own secret fire, locked away until now
because she's been required to honor excessively feminine
conventions.
Authors' Thoughts...
Barbara Dawson Smith:
"He appeals to a woman's
instinct to nurture, heal. He has the ability to feel deep
emotions; if she can teach him to love, he'll devote himself to
her forever. It isn't easy to win his heart, but the rewards are
many!" Barbara suggests Susan Wiggs' The Horseman's
Daughter.
Susan Wiggs:
"I love stories that lead to a
character's redemption. I think it goes back to the Persephone
myth. On some level we all want to drag a man out of the dark
underworld and into the light." Susan gets traditional with
Jane Eyre.
Geralyn Dawson:
"The reader has the opportunity to
experience that pang in the heart that intense emotion offers. We
can let our hearts break right along with his because we know we
have a safety net—the happy ending." Geralyn recommends
All Through the Night by Connie Brockway.
This hero has been a favorite of women's fiction fans since
Charlotte and Emily Brontë each wrote about an emotionally
complex and darkly appealing hero. Romance's emotionally tortured
hero differs from his literary counterpart, the anti-hero, in
that he is powerful, successful, loyal and emotionally sensitive,
while the anti-hero is cowardly, disloyal and a committed
failure. The woman who finds the emotionally tortured hero
appealing recognizes that his past plagues him, and that he needs
healing. When she can teach him that love is an emotion worthy of
making oneself vulnerable for, he gives her a love blazing with
passion.
-Constance Martin
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