Document Type
Article
Abstract
“Mary-Sue” is a term describing a kind of idealized character frequently utilized—and criticized—in fan fiction. These idealized female characters are often perceived as the result of absorbed writing and as an invitation for women to engage in absorbed reading. By applying the “Mary-Sue” label to characters as widely separated temporally as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, 1741) and Stephenie Meyer’s Bella Swan (Twilight, 2005), this article demonstrates the extraordinary longevity this trope has had in women’s popular literature. Similarly long-lived are the criticisms of such “Mary-Sue stories” and their encouragement of female absorbed reading—criticisms that remain surprisingly consistent from at least the mid-eighteenth century to the early twenty-first. Studying the “Mary-Sue” trope helps us to understand the emotional, imaginative, interactive reading and writing practices of many women, both in the present and the past, and the close relationships between writer, character, and reader that often occur in women’s popular literature. It also demonstrates how these close relationships have been stigmatized over the centuries, contributing to the negative reputation of much of women’s popular literature.
Repository Citation
Barner, Ashley. "Pamela, Twilight, and the "Mary-Sue" in Literature: Patterns of Popular Criticism." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 11, no. 3, 2011, pp. 1–14. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol11/iss3/4