ABSTRACT
Fielding’s instructional manual, like her novel, is satirical. By presenting readers with outrageously funny instructions that stand in opposition
to those instructions included in popular domestic-advice manuals, Bridget Jones’s Guide to Life mocks the excessive domestication exhibited by publications such as Stewart’s and the implied promises these publications offer readers.² For instance, while Bridget tells readers a “well stocked” cupboard should consist of such ingredients as Silk Cut, four bottles of white wine, and matches, Martha Stewart’s instructions for stocking a cupboard are much more extensive. Sugar alone receives a paragraph long description.³ e text pokes fun at Stewart’s excessive domestication as well as the implied promise of upward mobility denoted by such phrases as “faux bois.”⁴ In a day and age where women, like Bridget, are rushing from work to dinner out with friends, who has time for marshmallow snowflakes, Fielding seems to ask. Rather than make pink cucumber soup, Fielding answers, women like Bridget are more likely to call for delivery.⁵ And, just as other chick lit texts have called into question the validity of women’s manuals, Bridget Jones’s Guide to Life interrogates the relevance that domestic-advice manuals have to young women’s lives.
