The emergence of female independent consciousness in "Amber" has a profound social background and is closely related to the social life at that time. World War II had a huge impact on American families and women's lives. After men are drafted into the army, women not only have to play the roles of mother and father in the family, but also have to go out of the house and join the workforce due to financial pressure, doing some tasks that were previously monopolized by men or considered unsuitable for women by society. . This is both a challenge and an opportunity for them to change their social status. In major military factories, women are engaged in the manufacturing of tanks, aircraft and ships, and munitions. Although there were initial concerns about hiring women for these jobs, by 1943, with the loss of male labor force, business management had to resort to female labor. The government encourages women to work and uses patriotic enthusiasm to motivate female workers. In "Rosie the Riveter," a popular song at the time, women proudly declared that women were "making history and working to win." By the end of the war, 19.5 million women were in the U.S. labor force, fundamentally changing the market for women's work. They were more mature than before the war, most were married, and wartime work became an opportunity for them to increase their family income and gain financial independence. However, female workers still received less wages than men. After the war, most female workers returned to their families and resumed their roles as housewives. However, as social issues expert Billa Amidon points out, in the long run, the work performed by women during the war laid the foundation for the emergence of the modern working woman.
"Amber" was a super best-seller in 1944 because it broke away from the limitations of previous romance novels and truly and delicately portrayed the struggles of women in a period of social transformation, as well as the emotions, family, economy, etc. that women care about. The book breaks through traditional social norms and gives new annotations, thus attracting a large number of female readers.
The female self-awareness reflected in "Amber" is also related to the specific category of historical romance novels. Historical romance novels are targeted at women, and female authors have more or less escaped the idea of ??writing for men. Although their language and thoughts still retain the imprint of the patriarchal society, their abandonment of the rational color in male culture makes these novels more feminine in a sense. It should be pointed out that the growth of female self-awareness and the color of female independence in "Amber" do not mean that it is a feminist novel, as Rosalind Coward pointed out: "If only because of a book It would be a huge mistake to think of it as having a feminist interest by placing women's experience at the center." However, "Amber" does embody characteristics that are very different from Scott's "Ivanhoe". After all, it is an indisputable fact that women’s independent consciousness is portrayed in historical novels.
"Amber" has been published for more than 50 years, and has a wide influence in Europe and the United States, and is deeply loved by readers. According to online book reviews from readers on Amazon's online bookstore in the United States, its reputation among readers is even higher than "Gone with the Wind", and it won the highest score in readers' book reviews - five stars. Almost all the kind words an author can dream of can be found in readers' book reviews, which are far more valuable to an author than a Pulitzer or a Nobel Prize. Many readers were ecstatic because they bought this book. Most of them have read "Amber" more than three times, and the most has read it 15 times, and they want to read it again. The age of the readers ranges from 14 to 65 years old. Many readers will never forget it after reading it, and they will read it again and again in the next 40 or 50 years. There are two very interesting things about "Amber": First, when the movie star Eva Gardner was reading the just-published "Amber", she was seen by her intellectual husband Artie Shaw. Shaw thought This is just a "junk novel", but later after he divorced Eva, he married the author of this "junk novel", Catherine Windsor; secondly, many women gave their daughters a gift after reading "Amber" He also named it Amber and introduced this work to his daughter, which is rare among readers of literary works. The words of one of the readers named Amber Walter are quite representative: "My mother was only 15 years old when she read this book. After reading it, she decided to use Amber with a strong character to give her first daughter Name it. When I was 13 years old, I decided it was time to read this book. It took me two months to finish it, but it was really satisfying and I read it too often. It's faded and dog-eared, and even had to be tied with a rubber band. I've read it 6 times and I'm not ready to put it on the top shelf. I recommend this book to everyone, young or old. It is indeed an eternal classic and will remain in my heart forever like "Gone with the Wind". "For readers, this novel is just like its name, a dazzling amber that makes people unable to put it down. When you watch it, you will fall into a story of time.