Anastasia "Ana" Steele is a 21-year-old college senior attending
Washington State University in
Vancouver, Washingtonwith her best friend Katharine "Kate" Kavanagh, who writes for their student newspaper. Due to an illness, Kate persuades Ana to take her place and interview 27-year-old Christian Grey, an incredibly successful and wealthy young entrepreneur in
Seattle. Ana is instantly attracted to Christian, but also finds him intimidating. As a result, she stumbles through the interview asking questions about his personal life and relationships and leaves Christian's office believing that it went badly. Ana tries to console herself thinking the two of them will probably never meet again. However, she is surprised when Christian appears at Clayton's, the largest independent hardware store in the
Portland area, where she works. While he purchases various items including cable ties, masking tape and rope, Ana informs Christian that Kate would like some photographs to go along with her article about him. Christian leaves Ana with his phone number. Later that day, Kate urges Ana to call Christian and arrange a photo shoot with their photographer friend José Rodriguez.
The next day José, Kate, and Ana arrive for the photo shoot at the Heathman where Christian is staying and Christian asks Ana out for coffee. The two talk over coffee and Christian asks Ana if she's dating anyone, specifically José. When Ana replies that she isn't dating anyone, Christian begins to ask her about her family. During the conversation, Ana learns that Christian is also single, but is not "a hearts and flowers kind of guy". This "warning" intrigues Ana, especially after he pulls her out of the path of an oncoming cyclist. However, Ana believes that she is not attractive enough for Christian, much to the chagrin of Kate. After finishing her exams, Ana receives a package from Christian containing first edition copies of
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which stuns her. Later that night, Ana goes out drinking with her friends and ends up
drunk dialingChristian, who informs her that he will be coming to pick her up because of her inebriated state. Ana goes outside to get some fresh air, and José attempts to kiss her, but is stopped by Christian's arrival. Ana leaves with Christian, but not before she discovers that Kate has been flirting with Christian's brother, Elliot. Later, Ana wakes to find herself in Christian's hotel room, where he scolds her for not taking proper care of herself. Christian then reveals that he would like to have sex with her. He initially says that Ana will first have to fill out paperwork, but later goes back on this statement after making out with her in the elevator.
Ana goes on a date with Christian where he takes her in his helicopter,
Charlie Tango, to his apartment. Once there, Christian insists that she sign a non-disclosure agreement forbidding her to discuss anything that they do together, which Ana agrees to sign. He also mentions other paperwork, but first takes her to his playroom full of
BDSM toys and gear. There Christian informs her that the second contract will be one of
dominance and submission and that there will be no romantic relationship, only a sexual one. The contract even forbids Ana from touching Christian or making eye contact with him. At this point, Christian realizes that Ana is a
virgin and agrees to take her virginity without making her sign the contract. The two then have sex. The following morning, Ana and Christian once again have sex. His mother then arrives moments after their sexual encounter, and is surprised by the meeting, having previously thought Christian was
homosexual because he was never seen with a woman. Christian later takes Ana out to eat, and he reveals to her that he lost his virginity at fifteen to one of his mother's friends, Elena Lincoln, and that his previous dominant/submissive relationships (Christian reveals that in his first dominant/submissive relationship he was the submissive) failed due to incompatibility. They plan to meet up again and Christian takes Ana home, where she discovers several job offers and admits to Kate that she and Christian had sex.
Over the next few days, Ana receives several packages from Christian. These include a laptop to enable her to perform research on the BDSM lifestyle in consideration of the contract as well as for the two of them to communicate, since she has never previously owned a computer, and a more detailed version of the dominant/submissive contract. She and Christian email each other, with Ana teasing him and refusing to honor parts of the contract, such as only eating foods from a specific list. Ana later meets up with Christian to discuss the contract, only to grow overwhelmed by the potential BDSM arrangement and the potential of having a sexual relationship with Christian that is not romantic in nature. Because of these feelings, Ana runs away from Christian and does not see him again until her college graduation, where he is a guest speaker. During this time, Ana agrees to sign the dominant/submissive contract. Ana and Christian once again meet up to further discuss the contract, and they go over Ana's
hard and soft limits. Ana is spanked for the first time by Christian; the experience leaves her both enticed and slightly confused. This confusion is exacerbated by Christian's lavish gifts, and the fact that he brings her to meet his family. The two continue with the arrangement without Ana having yet signed the contract. After successfully landing a job with Seattle Independent Publishing (SIP), Ana further bristles under the restrictions of the non-disclosure agreement and the complex relationship with Christian. The tension between Ana and Christian eventually comes to a head after Ana asks Christian to punish her in order to show her how extreme a BDSM relationship with him could be. Christian fulfills Ana's request, beating her with a belt, only for Ana to realize that the two of them are incompatible. Devastated, Ana leaves Christian and returns to the apartment she shares with Kate.
Background
The
Fifty Shades trilogy was developed from a
Twilight fan fiction series originally titled
Master of the Universe and published episodically on fan-fiction websites under the pen name "Snowqueen's Icedragon". The piece featured characters named after
Stephenie Meyer's characters in
Twilight,
Edward Cullen and
Bella Swan. After comments concerning the sexual nature of the material, James removed the story from the fan-fiction websites and published it on her own website, FiftyShades.com. Later she rewrote
Master of the Universe as an original piece, with the principal characters renamed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and removed it from her website before publication.
[10] Meyer commented on the series, saying "that's really not my genre, not my thing... Good on her—she's doing well. That's great!"
[11]
This reworked and extended version of
Master of the Universe was split into three parts. The first, titled
Fifty Shades of Grey, was released as an e-book and a
print on demand paperback in May 2011 by The Writers' Coffee Shop, a virtual publisher based in Australia. The second volume,
Fifty Shades Darker, was released in September 2011; and the third,
Fifty Shades Freed, followed in January 2012. The Writers' Coffee Shop had a restricted marketing budget and relied largely on book blogs for early publicity, but sales of the novel were boosted by word-of-mouth recommendation. The book's erotic nature and perceived demographic of its fan base as being composed largely of married women over thirty led to the book being dubbed "Mommy Porn" by some news agencies.
[12][13] The book has also reportedly been popular among teenage girls and college women.
[13][14][15] By the release of the final volume in January 2012, news networks in the United States had begun to report on the
Fifty Shades trilogy as an example of
viral marketing and of the rise in popularity of female erotica, attributing its success to the discreet nature of
e-reading devices.
[16][17] Due to the heightened interest in the series, the license to the
Fifty Shades trilogy was picked up by
Vintage Books for re-release in a new and revised edition in April 2012. The attention that the series has garnered has also helped to spark a renewed interest in
erotic literature. Several popular works, such as
Anne Rice's
The Sleeping Beauty trilogy and M.M. Majer's
Ero 4, have been republished to meet the higher demand.
[18]
On 1 August 2012,
Amazon UK announced that it had sold more copies of
Fifty Shades of Grey than it had the entire
Harry Potter series combined, making E. L. James its best-selling author, replacing
J. K. Rowling, though worldwide the
Harry Potter series sold more than 450 million copies compared to
Fifty Shades of Grey's sales of 60 million copies.
[19] It was number one on
USA Today's best-selling books list for twenty weeks in a row, breaking a previous record of 16 weeks set by
In the Kitchen with Rosie: Oprah's Favorite Recipes by Rosie Daley and
The Hunger Games by
Suzanne Collins.
07:38
Unknown
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment