Literary Precedents for The Rowan

This Study Guide consists of approximately 10 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Rowan.

Literary Precedents for The Rowan

This Study Guide consists of approximately 10 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Rowan.
This section contains 317 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy The Rowan Short Guide

In many ways, The Rowan originates from typical science fiction scenarios: the colonization of worlds through accessible interstellar travel, the various alien lifeforms — both benevolent and malicious, the extrapolation of current impossibilities into future routines.

McCaffrey also draws on typical romantic conventions in The Rowan: lonely woman looking for love, unconsummated love because of obstacles, the overcoming of them to fly to the beloved's side at a time of crisis, playing nurse to his near-mortal injuries, intimate knowledge of the other's needs and fears and past, all without having to say anything — a knowledge more accurate and specific than hazy intuition.

What is unique, then, is McCaffrey's combination of these genres. Science fiction's readers are still predominantly adolescent males, although McCaffrey's fans are increasingly diverse. Thus, she effectively combines genres, as well as adding a few contemporary innovations of her own. The lonely woman...

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This section contains 317 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy The Rowan Short Guide
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The Rowan from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.