Watch enough historical costume movies and TV shows, and you notice a lot of clichés popping up again and again. There’s the obvious romantic and dramatic tropes that inevitably move the plot along, but there’s also some weird ones that seem so specific and yet get repeated frequently. Like this one:
The main character gets sick or injured in the vicinity of another main character. Now that these two people are basically confined together for an extended period, they fall in love — or fall more in love if there had been some inkling of an attraction starting. It’s like a twist on the damsel in distress trope, although no rescuing is involved, just the distress happens and throws together the two potential partners.
Let’s look at some examples…
Tom Jones
I don’t know when this cliché started, but one of the earliest (published in 1749) I’ve noticed is when the titular Tom Jones breaks his arm rescuing Sophia, she takes care of him, and they fall in love during this time. So it’s a male damsel in distress, in a way! Of course, the love birds can’t be together because he’s a bastard and lower status than her, much hijinx ensue, and after much travail they are united in the end.
Sense and Sensibility, the First
Where the cliché really takes off is with Jane Austen. With her 1811 novel, she delivers a double dose, because the character of Marianne is both injury-prone and illness-prone. For her first foray into the cliché, she sprains her ankle while out walking in the rain and is discovered by Willoughby. He rescues her, taking her home, and making quite the good impression with her family. She immediately falls in love with him, and they carry on, making everyone think they’re engaged. However, he ditches her for a girl with money.
Sense and Sensibility, the Second
A broken-hearted Marianne goes walking in the rain AGAIN, and this time she gets sick with putrid fever. Her family thinks she’s on death’s door. In the 1995 movie, at least, Colonel Brandon rescues her from the rainy hill, and he calls the doctor. Most importantly, it’s the time they spend when she’s ill and Brandon is worried about her where she realizes, oh hey, he’s a nice guy, maybe I could love him instead of that cad Willoughby. What magic in that fever!
Pride and Prejudice
When Austen publishes this classic novel in 1813, she chills out on the cliché a bit. There’s just one incident where Jane is invited to Netherfield by Bingley’s sister, but she rides there in the rain and arrives sick — which is her mother’s plan because maybe she’s seen this cliché play out before? However her sister Elizabeth comes to care for Jane and stays a couple nights. This illness doesn’t directly lead to romance for Jane since she and Mr. Bingley already have a connection. But in a twist on the trope, this gives Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy a better chance to verbally spar and for him to fall in love. Undoubtedly this meeting leads to Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth since it’s the most they were together in semi-private situations.
Wuthering Heights
Closing out the trope is Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel where the whole plot turns on an injury. Cathy and Heathcliff are a couple of wild, crazy kids running around the moors, perfectly happy with each other. They randomly sneak over to their nearest neighbor house (which isn’t all that close), Thrushcross Grange, and peek in the windows one night to make fun of the fancy-pants Linton family. But Mr. Linton sets his dogs on the intruders, and while Heathcliff escapes, Cathy is bitten and captured by the family. She spends a couple months recuperating there, gets chummy with Edgar Linton and is given fine clothes by Mrs. Linton and Isabella. When she finally returns home, she DGAF about her old pal Heathcliff, and she decides to marry Edgar. Her whole life changes because of that injury!
Have you noticed this trope in frock flicks?
Ah yes, the good old Hurt/Comfort trope, much beloved by romance writers, especially (it seems to me) of melodramatic fan-fiction. If I never see a fan-fic description beginning with something like “Spock gets injured and Kirk/Bones/insert-preferred-person has to care for him…” it will be too soon lol.
Like any trope, its narrative value depends very much on how you use it. I’ve seen it used lazily an awful lot, and therefore I am reluctant to make it a plot point in my stories. But I definitely have a soft spot for putting The Stoic in a vulnerable position to see how he/she reacts.
In these examples, I like how Austen uses it (mirroring Willoughby and Brandon; putting Darcy and Lizzie together instead of Jane and Bingley). Another example from her work that comes to mind is “Persuasion,” where Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove fall in love during the latter’s convalescence after an injury.
Omg I forgot about all the old Trek fanfic! Austen did it better, but I didn’t want to fill this top 5 up with even more Austen ;)
Austen generally did everything better!
I’m not sure it counts as a cliché if it’s that old, and I think Austen uses the trope in a very unclichéd way. You could also have mentioned Louisa Musgrave’s fall from the Cobb in Persuasion, which puts Captain Wentworth off her and brings her into close contact with his friend Benwick, who takes her off his hands. Meanwhile, he recognises Anne’s strength and capability, thus making a step towards getting back together with her.
Going further back, there’s Orlando’s injury in As You Like It, which makes Rosalind faint while she’s pretending to be a boy.
Dickens is a multiple user of the trope, inevitably – just think how many sickly creatures there are in his books. And the Signora Vesey-Neroni in Barchester Towers exploits her restricted mobility mercilessly to foil Mr Slope. (As played by Susan Hampshire and Alan Rickman in the BBC series of the 70s, which never gets enough love.)
Dickens’s prime version is in Bleak House, where Esther is permanently disfigured by smallpox.
You know what trope I really dislike? That a simple fall down the stairs results in death! Really? I’ve fallen down the stairs many times and yet I’m still here.
Hah. Amy Robsart (Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester’s wife) might have something to say on that matter too…
Outlander needs a major shout out for resurrecting this trope.
Another trope in Wuthering Heights (the 1939 version, anyway) is Cathy looking radiantly beautiful on her deathbed. Didn’t she pine away for her true wuv, Heathcliff? :)
Hey it’s hard to meet good dudes, ya know?
There is also Jane Eyre, where St. John (that jerk) does not really fall in love with Jane (and she did not like him at all in that way), after rescuing her from death on the moors. He just wants to marry her to carry on his missionary “destiny” and since she speaks several languages (okay, just two) fluently, he figures she is the best candidate.