68 pages • 2-hour read
The Rose Bargain
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Background
Literary Context: Romantasy
The Rose Bargain falls into the category of romantasy and features a love triangle between Ivy, Emmett, and Bram. The debutantes in fae-ruled Victorian England ask each other if they are a “Bram girl or an Emmett girl” (77). Bram is initially portrayed as the moral, upstanding choice, while Emmett has a reputation for being promiscuous. However, the narrative eventually reveals that the roles are reversed; Bram is the treacherous one, while Emmett is only trying to gain allies to help him overthrow the queen and does not deserve his reputation as a libertine. This twist reflects the structure of earlier romantasy narratives such as The Vampire Diaries (1991) by L.J. Smith, which features vampires Stefan and Damon’s love triangle with Elena. Stefan is portrayed as the more promising prospect, while Damon is portrayed as a “bad boy.” However, Stefan proves to have a far more violent past than Damon.
Additional parallels can be drawn to the novel Legendborn and its sequels, which feature a female protagonist, Bree, who engages in a similar love triangle with Sel and Nick. Furthermore, Legendborn’s tournament-structured plotline is similar to the one depicted in The Rose Bargain. While Ivy and five other debutantes must face various trials to win the competition and marry Bram, Legendborn’s Bree competes in a magical order with the goal of becoming the squire of a reincarnated Arthurian knight. As these titles suggest, romantasy novels commonly pair the usual romance tropes with fantasy elements. The tournament arc therefore provides a convenient way to structure the novel’s primary action, while the romance scenes add higher stakes to the contest-in-progress and allow for deeper levels of character development and overall world-building.
Historical Context: Victorian England
The Rose Bargain’s focus on marriage draws upon the historical expectations of women in real-life Victorian England: a time period in which women were expected to remain within the home, looking after the domestic affairs and creating a welcoming atmosphere for their husbands, to whom they were expected to remain subservient. It was believed that working outside the home would hurt a woman’s reputation. Instead, Victorian women were taught to manage the household staff, cook and clean if necessary, and raise children. Venturing out of this private sphere was condemned, especially among the upper classes. These restrictive dynamics are reflected in The Rose Bargain when Faith’s father condemns her work as a ballerina. Similarly, the activities that Queen Mor chooses for the trial of stations were once considered proper activities for Victorian women, who were praised for their skills at sewing, making a seating chart, playing the piano, and dancing.
Notably, Smith sets The Rose Bargain in 1848, well before the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, which finally allowed women to control their own finances and dictated that their assets would no longer be fully controlled by their husbands. Specifically, the act decreed that women retained control over assets that they inherited from their family. This issue is highly relevant to the plot of The Rose Bargain, for Ivy’s concern over marriage stems from her knowledge that she and her sister will not inherit her family’s wealth and holdings if they do not find husbands. Yet if they do get married, their husbands will gain control of all their finances.
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