This novel written by Haggard is a truly enjoyable read. It effectively navigates between the boyish adventure travel novel such as Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and the feminist landscape of Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
In Haggard’s most popular work She, he chronicles the journey of a “beast” Horace Holly with his ward, Leo Vincey and his servant Job to an unchartered region in Africa in order to discover the truth of Leo Vincey’s familial history and meet the infamous She, who murdered Leo Vincey’s ancestral father Kallikrates, because he did not wish to abandon his wife to be with Ayesha.
Ayesha, the mystical, immortal, beautiful queen of this African region is an important figure in terms of challenging female stereotypes. Ayesha is representative of the femme fatale archetype for femininity. It is an important text in regard to its treatment of women, Gilbert and Gubar, prominent feminist literary critics, have in fact written about Haggard’s text entitled She. The eponymous She is essential to the narrative and is in fact the overseeing influence which permeates every inch of the text, her rule overpowers the story.
The novel has clear allusions to feminist, postcolonial, gothic, fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and romantic generic stylings, which is why I believe it has such a strong impact as a text: it filters into so many areas and appeals to many different types of reader interests. I would thoroughly recommend this text for anyone that truly enjoys a book that is truly difficult to put down.
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