A no-man's-land of sex: Reading Stephen Gordon and "her" critics.
J Lesbian Stud
; 22(2): 165-184, 2018 Apr 03.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28767009
ABSTRACT
One of the most read novels of lesbian, transgender, and queer criticism, Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of Loneliness (1928) has given rise to numerous and contradictory interpretations of the protagonist Stephen Gordon's complex relationship to her body. Some have argued that she is a historically specific example of female masculinity, others that she is a lesbian who wishes she were more feminine, and others still that she is a prototypical transsexual character. Focusing on the exemplary essays by Jack Halberstam, Teresa de Lauretis, and Jay Prosser, I argue that the coexistence of mutually exclusive interpretations of Stephen Gordon's relationship to her femaleness suggests that the novel is, in fact, a demand to readers to unmoor identity from sex and to recognize what I call "sexual indeterminacy." Lesbian, transgender, and queer theory's tendency to elide the literariness of literary objects and their reliance on critique as the primary mode of reading and argumentation have made it impossible for critics to see that the novel is explicitly about what cannot be settled.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Homossexualidade Feminina
/
Identidade de Gênero
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Literatura Moderna
Limite:
Female
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Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Lesbian Stud
Ano de publicação:
2018
Tipo de documento:
Article