Though ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ became a hit, it received intense backlash from many people. The primary reason for the novel’s backlash came from its story that romanticized the negative issues many people face in relationships.

Story

Though many people praise ‘Fifty shades of Grey’ for its uniqueness, the novel features a disturbing and bland story. At the story’s beginning, we meet Anastasia, a young, shy, and innocent girl whose inferiority complex and insecurities make her incapable of loving sane people. Though she manages to live for 21 years in complete innocence and naivety, she somehow meets Christian Grey, the perfect picture of an abusive eccentric man. Then, by some force of nature, she instantly feels a connection to Christian. Though the beginning gives an interesting background for a story that can show Ana’s growth and transcendence, the novel takes a much more sinister route.

After meeting Christian, Ana finds herself hooked to him. She becomes incapable of reasoning without Christian in the picture, and the innocent Ana we met in the first lines of the story becomes a mini-brave girl overnight. Her innocence suddenly disappears, and she becomes a partial badass ready to take on the world. The disconnection of the first parts of the story from the rest creates a feeling of disappointment as most readers will technical want something more out of Ana’s initial self.

The story jumps further to Christian and Ana finally having sex, and from there, it becomes a circle of love, tears, sex, and more tears. There are some parts of the novel where there is ample opportunity to dive deeper into Christian’s mindset. However, the story slaps glorification onto his lifestyle. Even though the story tries to be romantic, the oversaturation of weirdly dissatisfying sex makes it a ‘no-go’ for some people.

The story’s blandness comes from its continuous recycling of sex. Many romance novels depict sex all the time. However, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ includes sex scenes that disturb and irritate some people to imagine. The story takes BDSM and turns it into something terrible. Another aspect of the story many people may dislike is the over-glorification of abuse. Yes, Christian got abused as a child and teen, creating a wound in his past. However, he projects his trauma unto others by using BDSM and making them feel incapable of escaping his sight. His stalking attitude makes him more likely a creepy BDSM (past trauma) addict than a refined, sexy billionaire.

Dialogues

Many novels use the first-person perspective to tell the story. However, in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ the first-person perspective hindered fluidity in the dialogues. Throughout the novel, the conversations between characters contain no consequence; these include Ana’s conversations with her supposedly inner goddess. Though her constant mind-blabbering makes the story quite funny, it also hinders the fluid flow of thought. As for the interactions with other characters, there is little complexity in the dialogues. Honestly, without the sex scenes in the story, the conversations will be shells of words compiled with little relevance.

Characters

‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ did justice to its characters. There is a healthy number of characters that populate the novel. However, except for Christian, Ana, and Kate, all other characters had close to no impact on the story. Josei is a character that shows promise as a potential rival to Christian. His sweetness and friendship toward Ana provide a premise for an interesting internal conflict in Ana. However, he suddenly fades into irrelevance and becomes nothing but a dragging character. Ana’s indifference to some of the people who love her adds to the novel’s blandness as it removes the room for the internal conflict in Ana and competition for Christian.

Writing Style and Conclusion

With the first-person perspective, the story of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ feels quite bland and non-challenging. Though the novel tries to create conflict, it contradicts everything romance and love stand for. The story poorly portrays BDSM and makes sex look like an act that needs toxicity to function. The novel concludes with one of the most tragic phrases, as quoted: 

I curl up, desperately clutching the flat foil balloon and Taylor’s handkerchief, and surrender myself to my grief.

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