Silly Novels by Lady Novelists [by George Eliot] -- Article summary and themes
Summary Eliot begins the essay by saying that women produce a lot of silly stupid novels which she terms “mind and millinery” novels. These feature a particular type of heroin that is either rich, witty, accomplished, religious, and moral, or all of these except rich. In all these, men play the minor role of worshiping the heroine. The plots too are predictable and the heroine always ultimately comes out on top. Crappy writing is excusable if the authors are underprivileged but they are not – they are upper-class women. They are not good at representing any class of life, including their own. They misrepresent the speech of children and endow their heroines with unrealistic linguistic skills. She gives examples of novels with such failings. Also, novelists tend to have their characters exemplify unrealistic conversational skills. Other times they use complex language to express simple ideas. Often they create frivolous plots and character behavior with high morality. The other kind of