Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She Devil is a satirical critique of romantic fiction. The novel explores how one woman, Ruth defies her secondary role as a rather inadequate housewife and remakes herself. Ruth is a down trodden, silenced, invisible, huge and ugly housewife in a suburban backwater. Here women’s dreams (indicated by the name of her suburban road Eden Grove ) are meant to be satisfied by their wifely roles, but Ruth is an affront to the value system which celebrates passive, feminine, beautiful, dependent women. These culturally constructed women are the potentially lucky ladies of romantic fictions rewarded with tall dark handsome heroes and domestic bliss. Ruth fits none of the stereotypes,

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Published 30 March 2001

Citation: Wisker, Gina. "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil". The Literary Encyclopedia. 30 March 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=359, accessed 20 November 2009.]