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(I explain the LHMP here and provide a cumulative index.)
This segment finishes up Emma Donoghue's Inseparable. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how lesbian motifs and tropes have been handled in literature across the ages. Even those who aren't dealing specifically with historic literature or historic settings can come to a better understanding of why certain themes carry the resonances they do in modern fiction and media. For example, the "evil predatory lesbian stalker" trope has a long history that is still evoked, and the continuous thread of plot-resolutions that require lesbians to end up mad, dead, lonely, or straight goes a long way to explaining popular reactions against similar treatments of lesbians in modern media (e.g., Willow/Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) especially when no other lesbian characters are present.
Looking forward: for those who might be concerned that this series is uncritical of its source material, I have several items lined up that get a long, hard look and are deemed Less Than Useful. (In part, this is because I'm clearing out the last remaining items in one of my file folders.)
* * *
Donoghue, Emma. 2010. Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8
Keywords: love desire sex cross-dressing passing cohabitation
Chapter 6: Out
The expression of a self-realized romantic and erotic preference for women significantly predates modern language about “being out". Anne Lister in her ca. 1800 diaries expressed a clear and absolute preference for loving and being loved by women. As a literary motif, this recognition of same-sex preference and the effects it has on a character begins appearing in the later 19th century. But the context of this realization can take the story in many directions. As a general pattern, though, coming out (to oneself or the world) sparks a struggle against expectations both internal and external that must be resolved. The majority of literature falling in this group falls after-my 1900 cut-off so this summary will focus on the early examples.
The fictionalized medical case history was a context for presenting this "shocking" realization in an approved format. A Drama in Muslin (1886) blends the Monster and Out motifs, portraying Cecelia both as emotionally twisted and as a victim of outside forces that led her to a misplaced affection. But in contrast to Monster plots, she comes to a reconciliation with her desire and voluntarily chooses to sublimate it to a religious life. Another blend with the Monster motif occurs in Mephistopheles (1890) where the protagonist, after a frustrating attempt to realize her desire for her first love, enters a lurid demi-monde where she embraces her nature but indulges it in tandem with every other imaginable vice and is eventually driven to the socially acceptable resolution of madness. Again, what places it in the Out group is her self conscious recognition and embracing of her desires.
A 1903 Austrian novel translated as Are These Women? A Novel of the Third Sex depicts a very modern-feeling blend of unapologetic lesbian desire, feminism, and political debate among a group of female college students. Renee Vivien's classic A Woman Appeared to Me (1904) displays the same blend, rejecting medicalized explanations for a solidly essentialist position. Somewhat less positive is Hungerheart: The Story of a Soul (written ca. 1896 but published later) where the protagonist, after searching through multiple unsatisfactory relationships with women, settles into religious devotion and a close but "pure" friendship with a nun. The 1895 Norma Trist blends in a crime plot where the protagonist successfully defends the "normalcy" of her love for a woman, but admits she may have gone too far in stabbing her out of jealousy when she would have left her for a man. It is the unapologetic confidence in her lesbian nature that places this story under "Out" rather than a different category (Alas, the novel ends with a Deus ex Machina ex-gay conversion scenario)
Due to my own focus, I leave out many of the great classics of this genre: The Well of Loneliness, The Children's Hour, The Price of Salt. The all-female school story is another fertile ground for realizations of lesbian desire, but the examples given all fall well into the 20th century. But coming around full circle to the purpose of this blog, Donoghue's last sub-category "Places for Us" includes the use of historical fiction to create lesbian spaces in the past where a self-aware and unapologetic desire for women could flourish.
This segment finishes up Emma Donoghue's Inseparable. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how lesbian motifs and tropes have been handled in literature across the ages. Even those who aren't dealing specifically with historic literature or historic settings can come to a better understanding of why certain themes carry the resonances they do in modern fiction and media. For example, the "evil predatory lesbian stalker" trope has a long history that is still evoked, and the continuous thread of plot-resolutions that require lesbians to end up mad, dead, lonely, or straight goes a long way to explaining popular reactions against similar treatments of lesbians in modern media (e.g., Willow/Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) especially when no other lesbian characters are present.
Looking forward: for those who might be concerned that this series is uncritical of its source material, I have several items lined up that get a long, hard look and are deemed Less Than Useful. (In part, this is because I'm clearing out the last remaining items in one of my file folders.)
* * *
Donoghue, Emma. 2010. Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8
Keywords: love desire sex cross-dressing passing cohabitation
Chapter 6: Out
The expression of a self-realized romantic and erotic preference for women significantly predates modern language about “being out". Anne Lister in her ca. 1800 diaries expressed a clear and absolute preference for loving and being loved by women. As a literary motif, this recognition of same-sex preference and the effects it has on a character begins appearing in the later 19th century. But the context of this realization can take the story in many directions. As a general pattern, though, coming out (to oneself or the world) sparks a struggle against expectations both internal and external that must be resolved. The majority of literature falling in this group falls after-my 1900 cut-off so this summary will focus on the early examples.
The fictionalized medical case history was a context for presenting this "shocking" realization in an approved format. A Drama in Muslin (1886) blends the Monster and Out motifs, portraying Cecelia both as emotionally twisted and as a victim of outside forces that led her to a misplaced affection. But in contrast to Monster plots, she comes to a reconciliation with her desire and voluntarily chooses to sublimate it to a religious life. Another blend with the Monster motif occurs in Mephistopheles (1890) where the protagonist, after a frustrating attempt to realize her desire for her first love, enters a lurid demi-monde where she embraces her nature but indulges it in tandem with every other imaginable vice and is eventually driven to the socially acceptable resolution of madness. Again, what places it in the Out group is her self conscious recognition and embracing of her desires.
A 1903 Austrian novel translated as Are These Women? A Novel of the Third Sex depicts a very modern-feeling blend of unapologetic lesbian desire, feminism, and political debate among a group of female college students. Renee Vivien's classic A Woman Appeared to Me (1904) displays the same blend, rejecting medicalized explanations for a solidly essentialist position. Somewhat less positive is Hungerheart: The Story of a Soul (written ca. 1896 but published later) where the protagonist, after searching through multiple unsatisfactory relationships with women, settles into religious devotion and a close but "pure" friendship with a nun. The 1895 Norma Trist blends in a crime plot where the protagonist successfully defends the "normalcy" of her love for a woman, but admits she may have gone too far in stabbing her out of jealousy when she would have left her for a man. It is the unapologetic confidence in her lesbian nature that places this story under "Out" rather than a different category (Alas, the novel ends with a Deus ex Machina ex-gay conversion scenario)
Due to my own focus, I leave out many of the great classics of this genre: The Well of Loneliness, The Children's Hour, The Price of Salt. The all-female school story is another fertile ground for realizations of lesbian desire, but the examples given all fall well into the 20th century. But coming around full circle to the purpose of this blog, Donoghue's last sub-category "Places for Us" includes the use of historical fiction to create lesbian spaces in the past where a self-aware and unapologetic desire for women could flourish.
