The fantasy of the Byronic hero and female omnipotence: a psychotherapist's perspective on Fifty Shades of Gray

Characters in fiction now and then get into trouble, conflict, and risk their lives. And very often a tragic outcome awaits them - let us recall, for example, Romeo and Juliet or Count Dracula. Claudia Hochbrunn and Andrea Bottlinger subject famous heroes of world culture to psychological analysis and explain what the causes of their problems are and how typical they are for a particular era.

"Heroes of the books at the reception of a psychotherapist" will be published in Russian in March 2021 by the publishing house "Alpina Publisher". Lifehacker publishes an excerpt from the chapter “Fifty Shades of Gray”. A bestseller, it is not clear why it has become a bestseller."

Byronic hero: why many women consider it their duty to save him

Christian Gray belongs to the literary archetype of the Byronic hero, described in the works of the British poet Lord Byron. Tom liked to create slightly morose but passionate male heroes who become social outsiders because they think they are better than most other people.

Byron's hero is often cynical, quarrelsome and arrogant, and almost everything in his behavior is explained by a dark secret.

In modern romance novels, the male hero is often this type. As we have already said, this is how a woman's fantasy about power is manifested - to “tame a monster” with the power of love. And even wider - to save the bastard from himself.

This is exactly what Ana does in Fifty Shades of Gray. She enters into a relationship with a man who mistreats her and everyone else, and her love alone is enough to heal him from secret trauma and make him a relatively decent person. This makes Anu special, because before her, no one has succeeded. Like all real heroes, she does the seemingly impossible.

In life, however, this does not happen, but this explains why many women continue terrible relationships: they believe that with enough patience they can turn the abuser into a prince from a fairy tale. In life, such unions are, unfortunately, very stable, even if women are truly abused. The reason is that the game is constantly going on with the change of power. The man beat the woman - now he is strong. In response, she threatens to leave him. On his knees, he sobbingly promises to change if only she stays. Now she is stronger, she generously forgives him. And so on until the next beating …

A woman will not change such a man: this is a kind of ritual. A man knows that he can do what he wants if he then performs his ritual of humility. Then he can beat his partner again. Such a person is able to change only after he is repeatedly abandoned by women and finally he will no longer be able to find anyone else. But then, perhaps, he will simply join a group of radical masculists who believe that "evil women suppress poor men."

Psychiatrist's Fifty Shades of Gray

The most interesting thing about Fifty Shades of Gray is that it is about healing a severely traumatized, completely mutilated person only with the help of love. This is an idealized view that runs counter to normal psychotherapy practice and exists only in the imagination of the readers. In addition, Christian Gray is not a real character, but a kind of fantasy, a projection of the hidden desires and aspirations of the heroine Ana. A man who in reality does not exist and cannot exist, because there is nothing believable in him.

Christian Gray - The Reference Projection of Desire

Like Momo, Fifty Shades of Gray cannot be truly analyzed using its characters: they do not portray real people (although the author may have thought that she has created an excellent model for overcoming trauma). But if Momo's story can still be viewed as a holistic work, where each element performs its function within the overall composition (in our case, a symbolic depiction of depression in human society), then in "Shades" there is no such intellectual subtext. This predominantly means Freud's It - forbidden desires hidden in the depths of the psyche.

Ultimately, Christian Gray as a character is only an expression of these desires and fantasies in the form of an ideal partner, although at first glance he does not seem particularly ideal. Why he is still an ideal, we will now explain.

First, Christian is incredibly rich. He is a genius, and he does not need to do anything in order to get rich: he made sure that money became more and more just like that. It seems that he never has to work for this: a couple of telephone conversations with fashionable business words and meetings are enough, at which he, apparently, most of the time is busy writing phone messages to Anya. He has time to devote himself completely to his hobbies.

Here we see the first inconsistency by which it can be understood that Christian cannot be a real person. People whose wealth continues to multiply on their own have either inherited it or have worked hard. Christian, the son of a drug addicted prostitute, although he was adopted by a wealthy family, seems to have achieved everything on his own, so I wonder how he did it and how he does business. There are many success stories of self-made millionaires, but what they have in common is that they live for their business, their dreams, often neglecting the sphere of relationships. For true millionaires who have achieved success only on their own, their business is in the first place in life, which, so to speak, replaces therapy for them when faced with any trauma. They just don't have time for hobbies, unlike Christian.

But reality is not important: for the dream of an ideal man, it is enough just the fact that he has a lot of money and he did not inherit it, but earned it. Therefore, he can be considered a potent, strong man.

Secondly, the ideal man should, of course, devote a lot of time to the chosen one and constantly fight for her. No wonder he doesn't have time to run his own business, he has to courting Anastacia! In order to somewhat veil everything and promise the reader a mini-conflict, at first he is engaged in stalking. At the same time, he does not cross a certain border, allowing him to maintain a conflict of autonomy / dependence in the main character. Exactly what this means we will show by analyzing Anu.

Third, he must satisfy the beloved sexually. This is undoubtedly an important trait of the ideal partner in romance novels. However - and this is also important - the heroine must remain "clean". She is not allowed to be a self-confident, passionate woman, because in many cultures, including the sanctimonious United States, this is reprehensible (I wonder if this is why the United States gets along so well with Saudi Arabia). The purity of the heroine is preserved due to the fact that Christian seduces her, as it were, and she pretends and in fact allegedly does not like sex, but sacrifices herself for the sake of "pure love". Therefore, BDSM is placed here in a completely wrong context, becoming pseudo-rape, which in fact is not rape at all, but pleasure for the heroine and her reason to overestimate her sexuality. Only further in the course of the novel can she really realize her inclinations - at the moment when Christian, presumably, is recovering from his kind of BDSM. In fact, it is the heroine who finally confidently manifests her sexual desires and no longer needs humiliation rituals to punish herself for pleasure. But in this she

does not admit to himself, therefore, even here desires are projected onto the man.

Thus, Christian has no character at all: he is just a screen for projections of the unrealized sexual desires of the heroine and the readers admiringly watching her. Real BDSM fans only shake their heads in response and feel insulted, because this is not about BDSM at all.

Anastacia Steele is a woman who makes her wild dreams come true

Ana is initially presented as a harmless, awkward girl, similar to her predecessor Bella from Twilight. But her story is markedly different from Bella's. Where Bella fights and wants sex from prim Edward, Ana prefers the role of a seduced virgin.

Ana is obsessed with the desire to simultaneously depend on someone and have complete freedom. In psychology, this is called an autonomy / dependency conflict. These are two opposite aspirations, which in fact cannot be combined for a long time: you have to compromise and tend to one or the other, depending on the circumstances. But Ana wants both at the same time. She expects all-round care and the fulfillment of all her secret desires - and at the same time, complete freedom. This is made possible by the appearance of the man of her dreams, Christian Gray. At times he behaves like a stalker-stalker, depriving the heroine of autonomy with his solicitude, but in the end he does exactly what she wants. Outwardly, he gives the impression of a strong man, but inwardly, he depends on her, like an obedient slave who fulfills her innermost desires, and in such a way that she does not even need to be responsible for them: and this is entrusted to him. There are no serious conflicts between partners, and the quarrels depicted in the novel can be called rather pseudo disagreements over trifles - in order to preserve the appearance of a complex relationship for readers. Anya manages to convince Christian to fulfill her wishes every time, so that she becomes the center of his life. There is no truly equal relationship between them: Christian lives only for Ana, he has no needs of his own, they exist only in Ana's imagination and serve only for her self-aggrandizement: she is the only one who is able to "cure" Christian. But even this healing is necessary for Ana only in order to receive pleasure and gain strength. In fact, Gray has nothing to cure: as a person, he does not exist and is not felt. He has no real goals, wants, or needs other than to make Anu happy.

Why Fifty Shades of Gray is such a success

The great advantage of Fifty Shades of Gray is not in its captivating plot, but in the fact that the book features an ideal projection object for forbidden female fantasies. And these forbidden fantasies include both wild sex, which today is quite socially acceptable, and a completely different desire - to completely relax and only receive various kinds of support. Don't worry about anything, have a man by your side who will take care of everything and save you from all problems (even from making unpleasant decisions). Nowadays, this is considered extremely unfashionable: a modern woman should make a career and be able to stand up for herself. Thanks to this, she gets the right to frantic sex, the way she wants. Even 60 years ago, everything was the other way around - a woman had the right to all kinds of support, but she had to obey the one who provides it. Sensual sex, in which a woman can also express her desires, seemed dangerous to a man: what if he someday will not be able to satisfy all the expectations of his partner? It was also undesirable, and not necessary, to build a career: the breadwinner of the family had to take care of the satisfaction of material needs. In response, the woman had to take care of him emotionally, even giving up her own emotional needs if necessary.

In Fifty Shades of Gray, Ana resolves this conflict by getting everything at the same time in the person of her billionaire husband, who provides her with both material and emotional support. When she wants to pursue a career, he buys her a company. She can command people around without risking anything - no one will fire her. At the same time, she can punish her husband by depriving her of love, and she knows very well that without her he will not be able to cope with his many injuries. In short, she is now almost omnipotent: a working woman with a rich husband who also has power over his soul. Only the Lord God has more power. And the additions in the form of BDSM and sex in the novel are minor trifles: it is not they who make it interesting, but absolute freedom and the possibility of resolving the autonomy / dependence conflict. It is not for nothing that in recent years, many stories about BDSM have failed in the e-book market, while romance novels about billionaires are still in the Top 100 on Amazon.

We are faced with the ideal fantasy of all those women who want to be provided and at the same time aspire to power. Women who are interested in their own careers, do not need financial support, have an equal partner with whom there may be disagreements - not the target audience of "Shades". They will only shake their heads: both the book and Ana's whole life seem boring to them. After all, the heroine has no real goal - she is just a narrow-minded girl who wants to be pampered, and is waiting for the immediate satisfaction of her desires.

But to be honest, sometimes everyone wants it, and if the book is in your hands at the right moment, it can hit the target - at least for a short while.

"Heroes of the books at the reception of a psychotherapist", Claudia Hochbrunn, Andrea Bottlinger

Claudia Hochbrunn is a practicing psychotherapist who has worked in psychiatric clinics for many years. Andrea Bottlinger is a literary critic, editor and translator. This creative collaboration allowed them to compose accurate and very curious psychological portraits of famous characters - from King Oedipus and King Arthur to Harry Potter and Bella Swan. The book will be of interest to everyone who loves fiction and is fond of psychology.