The World According to Bridget Jones: Discourses of Identity in Chicklit Fictions

The World According to Bridget Jones: Discourses of Identity in Chicklit Fictions examines the cultural functioning of a popular contemporary strand in mainstream Anglo-American literature, known as - chicklit. Assuming that the interpretive potential of chicklit novels is connected with the process of identity formation, the book points out the possibility of the reader’s identification with certain fictional discourses permeating the convention. The study focuses on complex links between Anglo-American cultural discourses and narrative constructions of identity and explores narrative representations of contemporary family, love, and sexuality. It also tackles the relation between chicklit and consumerism, reconstructing salient characteristics of contemporary consumer culture and the position of the fictional female consumer within discourses of body, beauty, and shopping.