48 pages • 1 hour read
Nora Goes Off Script
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Fantasy Versus Reality
There is a constant tension between fantasy and reality in Nora Goes Off Script, and the theme plays a key role in Nora and Leo’s relationship. The characters in the novel inhabit significantly different worlds; Leo leads the life of a Hollywood celebrity while Nora is from rural New York and focused on family life. The differences between these worlds mean that Nora and Leo cannot imagine themselves together. Each idealizes the other’s life as if it were an unattainable fantasy. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that their worlds are equally real; they are just exceedingly different.
The contradiction between fantasy and reality is first evident in Nora herself. Nora is “in the fantasy business” (173); she writes light-hearted romantic movies with little grounding in reality. When she goes to write, she feels a sense of “magic,” like she’s “about to enter another world” (172), but in general, Nora is an efficient and realistic woman. She lives by her schedule and manages her responsibilities meticulously. What she appreciates most about her work is not the magic of it but instead that it allows her to pay the bills and support her children. Her movies may be fantasy, but they make very real money that fuels Nora’s reality. Initially, Leo’s sparkly Hollywood world is unreal to Nora. She never believes in the truth of their relationship because Leo Vance is “a man who dates starlets,” and Nora is just “a normal woman” (100). The story where the movie star falls in love with the single mom could only exist in a romance movie.
Leo also considers Nora’s life to be a magical and unreal place where he doesn’t belong. Although his world might be more glamorous, everything in Leo’s life revolves around his career, and he struggles to maintain a hold on himself as a person. Leo feels like he is “disappearing” (40), swallowed up by his career and others’ expectations of him. Real-life activities like grocery shopping and elementary school soccer games are novelties for him. He tells Nora there is “something almost scared about” (83) her life with her children; they love and support one another unconditionally, which is lacking in Leo’s life. He doesn’t push back when he believes Ben has returned because he thinks Nora’s ex-husband completes the happy family picture he is only “borrowing” (246).
When Nora sells Sunrise and The Tea House is nominated for an Oscar, her world collides with Leo’s. She finally develops the confidence to believe that her fantasy life can become a reality. Leo likewise learns to blend his world with Nora’s, and they no longer have to distinguish between fantasy and reality; their life together is real.
Gender Roles and Power Dynamics
Traditional heteronormative gender norms play a key role in the romance genre. Men and women are generally expected to conform to gendered stereotypes, such as women who are emotional, demure, and submissive, and men who are powerful, dominant, and provide for their families. Nora Goes Off Script upsets these conventional power dynamics, highlighting how gender roles manifest differently in real-life relationships. Nora, a single mother supporting her children and relishing her independence, subverts many traditional gender roles. For the years she was married to Ben, Nora was the family’s sole breadwinner. Ironically, she supported her family by exploiting the female-centered fantasy of romance, which reinforces the gender roles she subverts in real life. Her role as the provider was a point of contention between her and Ben. To avoid emasculating her husband, Nora “made the money…quietly” (72), allowing Ben to maintain his position of power in the family. Eventually, however, Ben came to resent Nora for fulfilling a traditionally masculine role. The tea house where she worked was “a mirror he didn’t want to look into” (10) because it made Ben feel inferior to his gainfully employed wife.
On her own, Nora is far from the stereotype of the sad, abandoned woman. On the contrary, she is stronger and more competent than ever. She feels free and delights in being “in charge” (21) of her life. When The Tea House is released, Nora is celebrated as “a feminist hero” (191) for the film’s themes of victimhood and resilience. However, still reeling from Leo’s abandonment, Nora feels like a fraud. Losing Ben was easy because they didn’t love each other, but with Leo, Nora struggles to embrace the idea of her own film, that “victimhood is a choice” (191). For the first time, she is fulfilling the role of the broken-hearted, abandoned woman.
Nora is more or less in charge in her relationship with Leo. In contrast to Ben, Leo doesn’t resent Nora for her competence, and the two are more of a team from the beginning. While Leo follows Nora’s lead, he also takes the initiative to help around the house and with the kids in ways Nora has never experienced with a man. The two start to build a partnership that exists outside of traditional gender roles, and Nora realizes she doesn’t have to support her family alone.
The Artificiality of Romance Storylines
Nora Goes Off Script is a novel that both celebrates romance and makes fun of the genre’s conventions. Nora is an unromantic romance writer, and her narration demystifies the formulaic nature of love stories. She describes her process as Mad Libs, filling in blanks with new words to create a different story within the same general structure. This approach results in “low-stakes romance with the happiest possible ending, with dogs and adorable children, chance meetings and homemade desserts” (28). A couple “bristle[s] at first” (5) but eventually falls in love. Then, one of them is pulled away, but they always come back, usually at the start of the all-important community event. There is a big kiss, and everyone lives happily ever after.
In many ways, the novel follows the same formula as Nora’s romance movies. Like her characters, Nora and Leo bicker and annoy one another before they start to fall in love. Nora’s strict schedule is a quirk that might annoy prospective partners, but Leo finds it “adorable” (172). Both their families are loving and supportive. The story diverges from romance genre conventions when Leo misses the opening night of Oliver Twist. This deviation from the formula reaffirms that real-life relationships don’t follow a script, and that Nora must look at her life realistically, not as one of her romance plots.
When she starts writing again, Nora turns her romance with Leo into one of her scripts with almost no effort at all because, except for his absence, it adheres so closely to the formula she uses. This fact also helps convince her that her relationship with Leo isn’t real: “In reality, I was living a boilerplate movie, as simple as Mad Libs” (173). However, both her and Leo’s feelings are real, suggesting that the formulaic nature of romance doesn’t necessarily dilute its power. When Nora writes The Tea House, she explains it was “a departure from the formula and…definitely the best thing [she’d] ever written” (5). However, The Tea House was not a love story; there was nothing romantic about Nora’s relationship with Ben. Her second script, Sunrise, is a classic love story. She follows the romance formula and writes something just as powerful as The Tea House.
In the end, Nora gets her happy ending. But the extra time she spends alone before her love interest returns allows her to find it on her own terms. Although her heart is broken, Nora is ultimately stronger by the novel’s end. The great success she experiences in her career builds her confidence, and by the time she and Leo make their way back to one another, she believes in their future together.
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