Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey by Lori Perkins Page B

philanthropy and dedicates much of his time and creative energy to feeding the world’s poor and developing technologies to better life in the Third World. However, unlike many of his Byronic predecessors, Christian recognizes his shortcomings and is well aware of his baggage. In this respect, he is a more evolved version of the Byronic hero. He is drawn to goodness and even though he struggles with integrity, he wants to do the right thing. He warns Ana, “You should steer clear of me. I’m not the man for you.” He marvels at her innocence and doesn’t want to taint it, yet he finds himself “like a moth to a flame.” The feeling is mutual. Ana expresses on numerous occasions that she fears she is “Icarus flying too close to the sun,” but nomatter how hard she tries, she cannot resist “poor, fucked-up, kinky, philanthropic Christian.”
    These emotional discrepancies result from yet another factor that Byronic heroes have in common: they are haunted, tortured souls who wrestle with demons from their past. In Christian’s case those demons would include being raised by a “crack whore” mother, beaten by her pimp, and left alone with her dead body for four days, scared and hungry, at the age of four. Oh, and one of his adoptive mother’s friends seduced him at fifteen and turned him into her BDSM boy toy. In turn he has learned to channel his anger by beating and having sex with girls who look like his birth mother. Super healthy, I know. “Paging Dr. Flynn!” So, in other words (Ana’s inner goddess’, to be exact) he “has a 747 cargo hold’s worth of baggage,” including a suicidal, gun-toting ex. (That being said, I would take Christian’s mommy issues over Mr. Rochester’s crazy, pyromaniac wife in the attic any day!)
    Despite his beauty, intelligence, wealth, and power, the Byronic hero’s emotional baggage would prove too much for most women to handle. Is it any wonder that Ana, our heroine and Christian’s love interest, is a dewy-eyed literature major? Who better to fall for our Byronic friend than someone who has spent her entire life in love with his fictional counterparts? She even looks to her favorite romantic heroines for guidance: “Elizabeth Bennet would be outraged, Jane Eyre too frightened, and Tess would succumb, just as I have.” Christian and Ana are a perfect illustration of opposites attracting. Fifty Shades tells a tale as old as time: beauty tames the (sexy) beast; only a true innocent can unlock the Byronic hero’s heart.
    What is it about the Byronic hero that certain women can’t resist?
    Even Ana, our Austen-loving, Brontë-reading, Hardy-quoting protagonist, has trouble putting her finger on it: “No man has ever affected me the way Christian Grey has, and I cannot fathomwhy. Is it his looks? His civility? Wealth? Power? I don’t understand my irrational reaction.” Right now millions of housewives are questioning their own reactions (irrational or otherwise) to Christian Grey. Why do we love this guy so much? The answer is simple: we love him for all the reasons we have always loved our Byronic heroes.
    Perhaps the most obvious trait we fall for is how ardently they love and adore their women. Byronic heroes say romantic things like: “If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn’t love you as much as I do in a single day” (Heathcliff,
Wuthering Heights
). And this: “You have bewitched me, body and soul” (Mr. Darcy,
Pride and Prejudice
). And this: “You are exquisite, honest, warm, strong, witty, beguilingly innocent; the list is endless. I am in awe of you. I want you, and the thought of anyone else having you is like a knife twisting in my dark soul” (Christian Grey,
Fifty Shades Darker
). I mean, come on! That’s some good stuff! These men are passionate in their work, their causes, and their relationships. They are not afraid to tell you that you are beautiful and make no secret of how much they love you;