The only reason I purchased this book was because I happened across it while scrolling through "Nancy Drew" items on Amazon. The description of the book on the website claims the author "explores how heroines ... have flown beneath the radar even as they have been bent on redemptive missions." The description goes on to cite examples, "[f]rom Bluebeard's wife to Nancy Drew, and from Jane Eyre to Janie Crawford, women have long crafted stories to broadcast offenses in the pursuit of social justice." Based on this, I felt the book might have some valid research material about not just Nancy Drew, but the representation of women in general in folklore, fairy tales, and fiction through the ages, and so I bought it. I do not regret buying the book, because even though the chapter with Nancy Drew does not spend a lot of time on the sleuth, it does offer up some interesting views on the character, the books, and the relationship with the stories and the writing of them.
The Heroine with 1,001 Faces is authored by Maria Tatar, who is a professor at Harvard University and who has written books on folklore, German studies, and children's literature. In the introduction to the book (which is an astounding 15 pages in length - the longest introduction I have ever seen in a book!), Tatar readily states that this book is in response to Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949), which purported to study "the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths" (The Hero with a Thousand Faces). But, as Tatar appropriately points out, Crawford's book focuses solely on the journey of the male hero. "What about the women?" Tatar asks on the first page of her introduction. Whereas Crawford posed the answer that question with the thought that women are "the mother of the hero; she's the goal of the hero's achieving' she's the protectress of the hero..." (p. xii). Tatar indicates that the goal of her book is to look at these myths, folktales, and heroic journeys from a different point of view, and thereby showing that the women in these stories were on their own journey, spurred on by their curiosity to seek justice and right wrongs. It is Tatar's belief that women have their own heroic journey, not with swords and violent battles, but with words and wiles and a wealth of other non-violent means at their disposal.
Tatar gives some brief background on the creation of Nancy Drew by Edward Stratemeyer and his hiring of Mildred Wirt (Benson) to write those early stories of Nancy Drew. She even references the citing by many Supreme Court Justices and other influential women of Nancy Drew as their source of inspiration and encouragement to pursue their careers of choice. Tatar looks at Nancy Drew from the standpoint that in addition to her desire to seek justice for others, she does so while embodying "the ethics of care." She cites to a comment made by George Fayne in The Sign of the Twisted Candles, in which Nancy's friends remarks, "You are always putting yourself out to do a kindness for somebody or other who simply doesn't count in your life at all." It is Tatar's position that while Nancy Drew works to ensure law and order are followed, she never does this at the expense of others (p. 210). The young sleuth may risk her life time and time again to help those in need, she always does so with a kind word.
The author then posits the question of why the Nancy Drew (and Hardy Boys, as well as other similar series) books were banned from libraries. While Tatar fails to directly answer the question, she does point out that despite these attempts to keep the books out of the hands of children, it only seemed to fire up their desire for the books all the more (p. 211). She theorizes that when reading books, we are doing exactly the same thing as the detective in the story - we are "[d]ecoding mysteries, sorting out the truth, finding meaning" (p. 211); and thus, when young readers pick up a Nancy Drew book, they are doing the same exact things that Nancy is doing in the book.
What honestly piqued my interest the most about this section of the book is Tatar's comparison of the stories involving "ownership" and "legitimacy" with how the books were written. She looks at the fact that a number of the mysteries involve stolen or lost items that need to be found and returned to their original owners with the manner in which Stratemeyer farmed out his outlines and plots to ghostwriters, who in turn provided completed books for which they had no ownership right to (even though the work was their own). As she states, "Dual authorship had a built-in rivalry between a public face (Carolyn Keene a/k/a Edward Stratemeyer) and a secret ghostwriter (Mildred Wirt Benson), and the books themselves reproduce that rivalry by putting their heroine on the trial of counterfeiters and thieves, those who appropriate the property that rightfully belongs to others" (pp. 212-13). Tatar even wonders if perhaps Benson "somehow wrote her own struggle with authorial identity into the series (consciously or not), turning Nancy into a sleuth who uncovers, among other things, true identities, the genuine article, the real thing?" (p. 213). While I don't know that I would answer that question in the affirmative, I do admit it is something interesting to think about.
Tatar wraps up her section on Nancy Drew by discussing how her longevity and legacy has inspired so many strong female characters that have come after, specifically looking at Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books and films. She even goes so far as to say that Hermione "exceeds Nancy's passion for justice by becoming a social activist who founds ... an organization designed to advocate for the rights of an oppressed group" (p. 215).
The author's look at Miss Marple, Wonder Woman (of whom she claims has certain detective-like skills and stories that fit the archetype), and other modern detectives provides for some interesting insight into those characters; but, for me, it was the seven-and-a-half pages about Nancy Drew that drew my attention. Seven-and-a-half pages out of a 290-page book is certainly not a very large part by any means, but I suppose when you are covering decades' and centuries' worth of material, we can be grateful she devoted that much space to our favorite female sleuth.
(As far as the rest of the book goes, I did attempt to read the chapters, but to me, a lot of the material felt like it was repetitive. It seemed to go over the same theories and observations, but simply applied them to different characters and stories throughout history, and I became a bit bored with it all, so I skimmed through it.)
RATING: 7 heroines who are much too flip out of 10 for looking at women in literature (myths, folktales, and fiction) through a new lens, and showing their accomplishments within their own heroic journeys!
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