Generic expectations about romance endings shape how readers judge religious resolutions
Evidence
The controversial ending, where Najwa accepts a payment from Tamerās mother to give him up, may prove disquieting for readers steeped in the tradition of secular romance with its normative expectations. The presence of monetary exchangeāin effect a bribeāin parting the two lovers stands in striking contravention of what would ordinarily be considered a satisfactory romance resolution. ā¦ That it jars as a denouement is testimony to a kind of generic idealism in the response to romance fiction, where a certain emplotment and narrative trajectory are expected automatically to result in a particular kind of outcome. ā Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 505
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: The Jane Eyre comparison and the āgeneric idealismā mechanism are reusable for analyzing whether Hamid and Naqvi endings subvert or satisfy readerly expectations.