SOURCE: "Family Romances: The Contemporary Popular Family Saga," in The Progress of Romance: The Politics of Popular Fiction, edited by Jean Radford, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 167-93.

In the following excerpt, Bridgwood explores characteristics of the family saga genre found in The Thorn Birds. According to Bridgwood, the presentation of extended historical processes in the novel is problematic because it reinforces the "social and sexual status quo" while offering new possibilities for women within the safety of family and tradition.

Realism and Romance

It has often been pointed out that in contemporary popular romantic novels the external world drops away from the text except as a setting, leaving the hero and heroine viewing each other in a one-dimensional universe. If one function of romance is to move woman from her position of heterosexual subordination to one of unified and secure subjectivity, then the romantic relationship is the place...