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Literary Imagination Advance Access published online on September 17, 2009
Literary Imagination, doi:10.1093/litimag/imp048
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. All rights reserved. For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Fairy Tales and Thrillers: The Contradictions of Formula Narratives

Lee Mitchell*

*Lee Mitchell, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. E-mail: mitchell@princeton.edu.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

What is behind the broad appeal of formula narratives? Why do so many people turn to Westerns and mysteries, romances and techno-thrillers? Or rather, why do some of us dote on some genres, returning repeatedly to find solace in galaxies far away or in ravines from which lone gunmen ride? There's never been an adequate answer to that large question, in part because explanations of sociologists based on broad content analysis never capture the allure of one genre over another, much less of a particular text. And while close study of specific texts—of distinctive settings, characters, even narrative strategies—may help explain a local appeal, we are still left to wonder at the larger social and historical pressures that make them into such monsters of popularity.

Yet if answers to why are not forthcoming, the answer to what binds formula narratives together may be less elusive. For genres with broad appeal . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Fairy Tales
 

   "24"
 

   Jack Reacher
 

   Conclusion
 

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