Abstract
This paper retrospectively examines a collection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* (LGBT)-themed books discussed by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, and questioning (LGBTQQ) and ally students and teachers across 3 years of an out-of-school reading group. Through a textual content analysis of a sub-set of these books, we examine what queer literature looks like, identifying qualities it shares, and considering particular resources and possibilities it offers readers that are distinct from the broader category of LGBT-themed literature.
Introduction
For several years, we have argued for making literature with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, and questioning 1 (LGBTQQ) characters and themes available to young people in schools. Recognizing that most schools do not yet support these opportunities, we initiated an out-of-school reading group with LGBTQQ and allied youth and their teachers to make this literature accessible to young people and to understand how such discussions might happen and what they might afford readers. Participating in and analyzing the talk that occurred in this book discussion group allowed us to identify and distinguish between LGBT-inclusive and queer discourses and to understand potentially oppressive and liberatory dimensions of each (Blackburn & Clark, 2011). LGBT-inclusive discourses often reinforce heteronormativity and binary constructions of sex and gender: that is, the social understanding that there are two distinct genders, women and men, that are synonymous with two distinct sexes, female and male, and that the expectation of being a woman (female) is to desire men (males), both emotionally and sexually, and vice versa. Because of this, LGBT-inclusive discourses may provide only a “sentimental education” (Britzman, 1995, p. 158) to readers, one that insists that gay and lesbian people are just like straight people and thus erases significant differences among people. Alternatively, a queer approach strives to suspend sexual and gender identities rather than underscore them (Jagose, 1996), interrogating heteronormativity by acknowledging a variety of genders, sexes, and desires, as well as foregrounding the sexual, thereby challenging the notion of what counts as normal among them (Blackburn & Clark, 2011). Given the understandings of LGBT-inclusive and queer discourses we gleaned in this prior analysis, we determined to look more closely at the texts that were selected and read in this book discussion group to explore what ideological and literary elements (Galda & Beach, 2001; Stephens, 1992) might further distinguish types of LGBT-themed literature.
The book discussion group, then, provides background for the focus of this analysis of the texts that were read in that group. That group, which included the first two authors, met at a local center serving LGBTQQ youth. Teacher participants came from a local teacher inquiry group committed to combating homophobia in schools through literature (Blackburn, Clark, Kenney, & Smith, 2010). Youth participants were initially invited by these teachers and often came from their schools’ gay-straight alliances (GSAs). Over time, youths directly invited peers, and some participants came from other schools beyond those of the initially invited teachers; moreover, some youths unaffiliated with schools but affiliated with the center also came to the group. Over 3 years of meeting, from October 2006 to July 2009, 32 people participated in the group, 22 youths and 10 adults. Across the 3 years, we met 20 times to discuss 24 texts, most of which were novels. Focal texts were always selected collaboratively. Both youths and adults brought recommendations for readings to the groups. Frequently, someone in the group—youth, adult, or both—had already read a text and thought others might enjoy it. In all cases, however, adults deferred to youth book selections.
It was after the group stopped meeting that we made a deliberate turn away from the voices of the group to look explicitly at texts. More specifically, we conducted a textual content analysis of a subset of the books read in the group. The subset comprised books we now understand to be queer. Through this analysis, we strive to answer the following research questions:
Analyzing these texts allowed us to understand and name the ideological and textual features of queer literature so that when such texts are read in schools, educators are better equipped to use them to model uses of language and other literary tools to critique and counter beliefs and ideologies (Galda & Beach, 2001), especially existing invisible ideologies of heterosexism, misogyny, and homophobia (Martino, 2009; Pascoe, 2007).
Conceptual Framework
To focus our analysis, we first had to identify which of the 24 texts that were read across the 3 years of this book discussion group were queer, a task that was more complicated than we initially imagined. Cart and Jenkins (2006) are, to our knowledge, the only scholars to date who have developed a heuristic of young adult (YA) literature with gay/lesbian/queer content. In their foundational work with respect to gay, lesbian, and queer YA literature, Cart and Jenkins relied on Bishop’s (1982) work in which she categorized African American children’s literature into social conscience books, melting pot books, and culturally conscious books. Using this as a model, Cart and Jenkins strove to “create a model specific to GLBTQ content in YA fiction using category descriptors that reflect post-Stonewall GLBTE history and experience to describe the evolution of YA literature with GLBTQ content from 1969 through 2004” (p. xix). Thus, they arrived at the following categories: homosexual visibility (HV), gay assimilation (GA), and queer consciousness/community (QC). It is this last category that seemed most likely to inform our effort to identify queer literature. It might even seem that we could just find the books that we had read that were, according to Cart and Jenkins, QC.
Their review, however, did not include all of the texts we shared because some of our texts are outside of the time period they reviewed (1969-2004) and other of our texts are outside of the parameters of what is conventionally considered “young adult.” That is, even though our books were selected, read, and discussed by young adults, they were not marketed to young adults. Moreover, upon a closer analysis of the Cart and Jenkins model, we came to understand that they were using
Ideology
From our study of Cart and Jenkins (2006), we learned a significant distinction among their three categories mentioned above: HV, GA, and QC. The three suggest a loose chronology, with HV being of the 1970s and 1980s, GA being of the 1990s, and QC being of the early 21st century. More reliable, though, is what distinguishes the categories conceptually. In HV literature, a character comes out or is outed as gay or lesbian and this outing is the “dramatic substance” of the story (p. xx). GA literature includes “people who ‘just happen to be gay’ in the same way that someone ‘just happens’ to be left-handed or have red hair” (p. xx). QC literature, however, represents “GLBTQ characters in the context of their communities of GLBTQ people and their families of choice” (p. xx). As such, each of these categories is distinguished by
Queer Concepts
As we state above, queer is not the lumping together of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, although it does pay particular attention to sexual and gender identities such as these (Jagose, 1996). Rather, it is the suspension of these classifications (Pinar, 1998). Queer theorists recognize sexual and gender identities as social, multiple, variable, shifting, and fluid; and while they allow for movement among such identity categories (Britzman, 1997), they advocate for movement outside of these categories as well. By rejecting categories of identity, queer theorists interrogate and disrupt notions of normal, with particular respect to sexuality and gender (Tierney & Dilley, 1998), but not limited to these identities. It is these two key ideas—that is, understanding sexual and gender identities in complicated ways and valuing disruptions of norms—which we discuss next and focus on throughout this article.
Foundational to understanding sexual and gender identities in complicated ways is the belief that these identities are not
The disruption of norms is a key tenet of queer theory. By norms, we mean social norms, which, according to Merriam-Webster, are “standards of proper or acceptable behavior.” In the context of queer theory, such standards are at least interrogated and more likely disrupted, focusing specifically on the disruption of sexual and gender norms, such as the binary between heterosexual and homosexual or that between man and woman. This goal and focus are grounded in the understanding of sexual and gender identities as social, multiple, variable, shifting, and fluid and the expectation of movement among and beyond such identity categories (Britzman, 1997). Queer theorists’ disruptions of norms are not limited to sexuality and gender, though. For example, in this study, the disruption of normative notions of families, homes, and time, stood out to us as characteristic of these queer novels.
Understanding queer in this way challenged us to consider whether, in queer literature, characters’ sexual and gender identities were represented as stable and essential or as something more complex. It also provoked us to examine whether norms, including those defined by sexual and gender binaries, notions of families, conceptions of homes, and even time, were disrupted.
Literary Elements
Just as queer theory guided our analysis, so too did scholarship on children’s and YA literature. We turned to this scholarship not because all of the literature we studied is marketed for children or young adults—it is not, as we mention above—but because it was selected, read, and discussed by yougn adults. The decision to select, read, and discuss literature marketed to adults with young adults and then use scholarship focused on literature marketed for children and young adults to guide our analysis of literature marketed to adults may seem misguided, but it is solidly grounded in Lesko’s (2001) conceptualization of adolescence. Lesko rejects the notion that adolescents are “deficient, a little crazy, controlled by hormones,” immature, and in transition (p. 189), and therefore incompetent to read books marketed for those older than they are. Instead, she proposes that “growth and change” are not limited to adolescents, instead they are “
In some cases, scholars pointed us directly to particular literary elements. Cadden (2000), for example, directs us to pay attention to mode and naïve narrators, and McCallum (1999) emphasizes the importance of focalization. It was our interest in sexuality and gender, though, that brought us to Stephens, with McCallum (McCallum & Stephens, 2010) and Romören (Romören & Stephens, 2002), who, helped us understand the significance of metonymic configurations. Similarly, it was our interest in time (Blackburn & Clark, 2014) that provoked us to consider flashback and foreshadowing. It is worth noting that we did not consider every instance of these or any other literary elements. Rather, we focused, in particular, on literary elements that served to convey the experiences of characters being and becoming queer. Next, we discuss each of the focal literary elements.
Mode
Mode is typically understood as a circle or compass, divided into quadrants including irony, comedy, romance, and tragedy, with comedy opposite tragedy and romance opposite irony (Cadden, 2010). Cadden (2000) asserts that most children’s literature is romantic and/or comedic with little movement beyond or between these. The problem with this, he claims, is that these modes do not provide much room for change by either the protagonists or the readers. Alternatively, he argues, irony and tragedy are more likely to produce change as a result of provoking cognitive dissonance and discomfort—unsettled by those feelings, the reader is pushed to engage the dialectic tensions posed by the competing values, ideas, and beliefs. Because Cadden’s interest in dissonance and discomfort aligns with queer theory’s tenet of disrupting norms, we, too attended to ironic and tragic modes, in particular, in our analysis of literature.
Focalization
Focalization is when some part of the story, perhaps a scene, event, or character, is described through the point of view of a character, who has unique beliefs and values which shape his or her interpretation and thus representation of the story. A character might be focalizing, that is, representing the scene, event, or character; or a character might be focalized, that is, represented through the eyes of a different character (McCallum, 1999). McCallum (1999) asserts that characters make their beliefs and values explicit through focalization, constructing themselves as ideologues and providing a range of ideologies from which readers can choose. There may be few or many focalizers in any novel. The more focalizers there are, the more polyphonic, or mulitvoiced, it is. A consequence of such a text is that it invites readers to align themselves with any number of ideologies (Cadden, 2000). Cadden (2000) argues that texts with multiple focalizers are the most ethical because they refrain from arguing for one clearly defined ideology. Building from Cadden’s argument, we assert that such texts are also the most queer because they avoid a single, static ideology and, instead, offer multiple and, at times, conflicting ideologies.
Naïve and unreliable narrators
Of course, some ideologies are meant to be resisted or suspect. Consider focalizations offered by naively unreliable characters or narrators. A naïve narrator (Cadden, 2000) is one who is “believable and challengeable,” often less “sophisticated” or “confident,” and thus, offers the reader, through her or his naïve discourse, a contestable view of the world (pp. 149-150). The contestability of naïve narrators contributes to the multivoicedness of the narration (Cadden, 2000) and, we assert, to the ideological diversity and queerness of a text.
Metonymic configurations
We also looked at metonymic configurations (McCallum & Stephens, 2010; Romören & Stephens, 2002); that is, the way in which patterns of behaviors, which are marked by gender, sexuality, and other normalized constructions, are “built up through the simple fictive practice of developing conflict and/or thematic implication through interactions amongst diverse and contrasting characters (often character stereotypes)” (p. 220). As Romören and Stephens (2002) describe, for example, a character’s behavior may be “marked by attributes which prompt readers to instantiate a schema for hegemonic masculinity” (p. 220), or other generalized practices. In the case of such a male character, he not only fulfills a story function but also is “apt to function as a metonym for hegemonic masculinity” in relation to other characters “performing different kinds of masculinity” as they “enter the novel’s configuration of gendered behaviors” (p. 220). Romören and Stephens note that both masculine and feminine metonymic configurations are possible as are other relational patterns, including father/son, mother/son, school situations, sports, and so on.
Flashbacks and foreshadowing
Finally, we examined flashbacks and foreshadowing, as temporal disruptions (Genette, 1980), particularly when those temporal disruptions mattered in the experiences of a character being or becoming queer. Bae and Young (2008) define a flashback as that which “tells (or shows) what has happened in the past with respect to the present” and foreshadowing as that which “presents what will happen in the future with respect to ‘now’ in the story” (p. 156). Such literary devices have a heterochronous effect; that is, they effectively disrupt time (Lemke, 2008). Heterochrony is when there is a change or distortion in processes aligned with time, or in Lemke’s (2008) words, it is the “intersection of processes and practices which have radically different inherent timescales” (pp. 25-26), with timescales meaning how long any given process takes. The notion of chronotope is foundational to the idea, and chronotope references both time and space, or, in Bakhtin’s (1981) words, chronotope is the “intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature” (p. 84). Multiple chronotopes can exist within one novel and are “mutually inclusive” and “dialogical” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 252) with one another. With this in mind, we are conceptualizing heterochrony as a time-space (McCallum, 1999) in literature that is artistically distorted. Such an artistic distortion might carry throughout a novel or be captured in a particular scene. These literary elements that effectively disrupt normative notions of time in ways that inform readers’ understandings of queer characters play a significant role in queer texts.
Methods of Analysis
The critical literature on LGBT content in books for young adults (Cart & Jenkins, 2006) provided a starting point for this textual content analysis. Through our analysis, we came to agree with Cart and Jenkins (2006) that queer texts hold great promise, and that this promise lies in understanding these books both in terms of content as well as literary artfulness (p. 166). To start, we categorized our initial 24 books using Cart and Jenkins’s three categories of LGBT fiction: HV, GA, and QC. As we mention above, some of the books among our 24 were already categorized by Cart and Jenkins; in these cases, we used the categories that were assigned by them. Other books, however, were not; in those cases, we applied Cart and Jenkins’s heuristic to those books. In doing so, we came to understand a difference between what they call QC and what we were identifying as Queer (Q), as we discuss above. Thus, we narrowed the list to the five remaining texts: Alison Bechdel’s (2006)
Texts and Characterizations.
This initial, rough analysis lead us to categorize broadly these five remaining books as Queer—that is, as books in which characters experience sexual identity fluidly or express gender in multiple ways, or in which norms are disrupted. Like Cart and Jenkins (2006), however, we sought more nuanced understandings of what this meant in terms of these specific texts. Therefore, we engaged in several iterations of independently reading and rereading these five focal texts using our Book Analysis Tool (see Figure 1).
Three iterations of book analysis tools focused on describing the book, analyzing characters, and analyzing scenes and panels.
In our first iteration, we read each book to develop an initial Book Description, including constructing a plot summary and noting the literary mode(s) (Cadden, 2010) in each text. This allowed us to gauge our shared understandings of the texts and how they moved across literary mode, which connected to our interest in the disruption of norms. Next, we engaged in a Character Analysis of each book, noting the qualities of the narrator (e.g., naïve, unreliable; Cadden, 2000) and focalized and focalizing characters (McCallum, 1999). Given queer theory’s focus on fluidity in sexual identity and gender expression and the disruption of norms, we read with a focus on disruptions of sexual and gender norms as experienced by LGBTQQ characters in the contexts of families and homes. This left us with a thorough, shared understanding of all of the focalizing and focalized characters in each book, particularly in terms of normative and nonnormative constructions of sexuality, gender, families, and homes. Finally, to address our interest in time as a potential queer feature, we engaged in a third iteration of reading, this time with a focus on scenes and, in the case of
After iteratively applying the Book Analysis Tool to each text, we looked through all of our data (i.e., book descriptions, character analyses, and scene/panel analyses) to identify the specific ideologies that supported and contradicted our naming these books as queer. To do this, we created Cross Book Analysis tables in which we pulled together data related to specific concepts as they were manifested across each of the books. For example, Table 2 shows a sample excerpt from a Cross Book Analysis Table focused on conceptions of identities.
Sample Excerpt From Cross Book Analysis Table.
When data from across the books were viewed, side-by-side, we were able to note different ideologies related to characters’ sexual and gender identities (i.e., essential, developmental, and poststructural) by looking both within each text and across texts. Moreover, we were able to note the role that literary elements played in support of these queer concepts. Therefore, for example, we noted the role of a naïve narrator and a single focalizer in
Findings
Our analysis revealed that queer literature, as a category, is an important extension of Cart and Jenkins’s (2006) work, and that it is distinctive among and from LGBT-themed literature in the way that it offers multiple and conflicting ideologies related to sexuality and gender. These ideologies manifest themselves in queer elements, such as poststructural rather than essential or developmental identity construction of characters, and disruptions of norms as they pertain to sexuality, gender, families, homes, and time. This queering happens through literary elements, but the literary elements alone are not enough, for these are evident in all literary work. Instead, the literary elements on which we focus are working in service of queering, and in our analysis are limited to those that support complex understandings of sexual and gender identities and normative disruptions of families (Bernstein & Reimann, 2001), homes (Kentlyn, 2008), and time (Bakhtin, 1981; McCallum, 1999). We discuss these queer elements as they take shape in the books of focus, as well as the literary elements that work in conjunction with them, next.
Conceptions of Identities
Sexual and gender identities are often understood as essential, developmental, or poststructural. Even though queer theory is clearly aligned with poststructural understandings of identities, it is worth exploring each of these three conceptualizations of identities because each of the books includes at least one character who brings to life each of these three notions of identities. As such, none of these books is purely essential, developmental, or poststructural. The lack of purity is arguably more aligned with queering than pure poststructuralism in that it offers multiple, variable, and conflicting ideologies. That said, essential identities are more pronounced in some of the books, particularly
Essential
Perhaps most contestable is Infinite Darlene’s sexual identity. The gender identity of Infinite Darlene, a male-to-female transsexual character, has developed and is now fixed. That is to say, as a transsexual character, Infinite Darlene’s “gender identity is different from [her] assigned sex at birth” (National Center for Transgender Equality, 2009), which was male. It is made very clear that she is a much happier and stronger person since rejecting her identity as a young man in favor of that as a woman when Paul states,
I don’t know when Infinite Darlene and I first became friends. Perhaps it was back when she was still Daryl Heisenberg, but that’s not very likely; few of us can remember what Daryl Heisenberg was like, since Infinite Darlene consumed him so completely. He was a decent football player, but nowhere near as good as when he started wearing false eyelashes. (pp. 15-16)
Still, Infinite Darlene’s sexual identity allows for more interpretation. During most of the book, when desire is revealed related to Infinite Darlene, it is a straight boy who is attracted to her. All we know about her desire is that she rejects him on the grounds that “he wasn’t her type” (p. 16). At the end of the book, there is a suggestion that Infinite Darlene is attracted to girls. Amber, a lesbian in the novel, considers this possibility with Paul, and a hint of confirmation is offered in the final scene when Infinite Darlene and Amber dance together: “I see Infinite Darlene whooping for joy as Amber attempts to dip her to the ground” (p. 185). A superficial read would be that Infinite Darlene’s desires shifted, but a closer read suggests that it is not that her desire shifts but that her peers’ understandings of her desire shifts. In other words, several characters in the book adhere closely to an essentialist model of identity development and thus may convey a monolithic ideology with little room for contestation or complication. The idea is we are who we are, even if we don’t know it yet.
The only possible exception to this appears in Kyle, Paul’s former boyfriend and emerging friend. Kyle explicitly states, “I still like girls. . . . And I also like guys” (p. 85), which may be understood as an essentially bisexual identity, which Paul suggests and then Kyle rejects saying, “Do we really have to find a word for it? . . . Can’t it just be what it is?” (p. 85). Paul says, “Of course” to Kyle, but wonders to himself whether this is true as, “The world loves stupid labels” (p. 85). This is the only character that presents a possible poststructural conception of identity. However, the representation is fleeting and less developed than the characters discussed above, which seems to eliminate it as a real possibility.
This understanding of identities as essential is maintained by Paul’s role as a naïve narrator (Cadden, 2000). Because the novel is told in the first-person and by Paul, everything we know is filtered through him. As an out, gay, young man, Paul knows a great deal about recognizing and negotiating homophobia. As readers, we believe him and trust him, especially in his recounting of his relationship with Noah, another out, gay, young man. He is questionable, however, because his filter is entirely that—gay and male. In focalizing the experiences of other characters, such as Infinite Darlene and Kyle, he fails to allow for their desires that do not resemble his own, that is, for Infinite Darlene’s possible attraction to Amber and Kyle’s fluid sexuality. While we see hints of the complexities of such relationships and desires, because the people in these relationships and experiencing these desires are focalized by Paul, Infinite Darlene, for example, gets inaccurately characterized as a “drag queen” and expected to be a feminine acting “girl”—one who is attracted to boys. The fact that Chuck isn’t Infinite Darlene’s “type” is understood by Paul as a simple “girl” rejecting “boy” dynamic, with no attention to the possibility that Infinite Darlene is a young trans woman who is attracted to girls, not boys. Similarly, Kyle gets described simply as “bisexual” (p. 85). A different narrator, perhaps a less naïve one, might have characterized both of these characters more accurately.
Developmental
Although identity as developmental is present in both novels, it is most explicit in
Early in the novel, Joel is described as “too pretty, too delicate . . . and a girlish tenderness softened his eyes” (p. 4). In other words, he is introduced as effeminate, but he explicitly conveys his repulsion to that which is not straight. Therefore, for example, when he meets the twins Idabel and Florabel, he initially rejects Idabel, who is decidedly masculine in favor of feminine Florabel:
Joel looked from one to the other, and concluded he liked Florabel the best; she was so pretty, at least he imagined her to be, though he could not see her face well enough to judge fairly. Anyway, her sister was a tomboy, and he’d had a special hatred of tomboys. (p. 33)
Therefore, not surprisingly, Joel finds “Holding hands with Randolph,” his gender nonconforming cousin, “obscurely disagreeable” (p. 85).
There is a shift, though, or a development in Joel’s desire. Later in the novel, Joel finds Idabel and her masculinity attractive. They are getting ready to swim and Joel conveys his reluctance to take his clothes off in front of Idabel because, in his words, “you’re a girl” (p. 131), to which Idabel responds,
Son . . . what you’ve got in your britches is no news to me, and no concern of mine: hell, I’ve fooled around with nobody but boys since first grade. I never think like I’m a girl; you’ve got to remember that, or we can never be friends. (p. 132)
With that, Joel undresses, and they swim. Afterwards, they are sitting out to dry when Joel “wanted to touch [Idabel], to put his arms around her, for this seemed suddenly the only means of expressing all he felt. Pressing closer, he reached and, with breathtaking delicacy, kissed her cheek” (p. 134). Here, Joel experiences and acts on his desire for Idabel. Perhaps he is attracted to Idabel because of her masculinity but acts on this attraction because he understands her to be a girl, thus making the attraction allowable, at least in his mind. It is not in hers as evident by her reaction: “She grabbed hold of his hair and started to pull,” which provoked a fight that ended in Idabel “astride” Joel, “her strong hands locked his wrists to the ground. She brought her red, angry face close to his: ‘Give up?’” (p. 135). Toward the end of the novel, Joel gives up his attraction to Idabel and connects with Randolph. He shouts to him, “I am Joel, we are the same people” (p. 227). Then Joel “took hold of [Randolph’s] coat-tail and steered him” down a path described as “Long, like a cathedral aisle” (p. 228), suggesting a sort of wedding between the two. Thus, readers get the impression that Joel was essentially queer but had to go through a process of development to come to terms with and claim that identity. The developmental model of characters’ identity development, then, does not allow for contestation regarding the identity, but it does allow for some complications along the way.
Poststructural
The other two books,
Again, while the poststructural understanding of identity is evident in both novels, it is most clearly embodied in the narrator of
Moreover, there is the ambiguity of sexuality. Although the narrator is in a relationship with Louise, a married woman, for most of the novel, he or she references relationships with women, such as Jacqueline and Catherine, and men, like Crazy Frank and Brutus. Therefore, we cannot identify the narrator as either male- or female-attracted. There is even a time when the narrator describes dancing with Louise in this way: “We are dancing together tightly sealed like a pair of 50s homosexuals” (p. 73). The use of the word
The ambiguity of the narrator’s gender and sexual identities continually asks readers to shift their understanding of the focalizer to make the most sense of the novel, which contributes to the multiple ideologies and queerness of the book. In other words, Winterson, the author, crafted the narrator in ways that do not allow a single, stable understanding of him or her in terms of gender and sexual desire and behaviors. As such, there is no essential sexual or gender identity, but neither is there any development toward some true identity. Rather, there is a poststructural conception of sexual and gender identities. This conception offers the most interpretive space for multiple, variable, and conflicting ideologies.
Disruptions of Norms
In the books we analyzed, the disruption of norms was particularly pertinent in characters’ sexual and gender identities, authors’ characterizations of families and homes, and conceptualizations of time (Bakhtin, 1981; McCallum, 1999). These normative disruptions typically occurred in conjunction with particular literary elements, such as mode, focalization, naïve narrators, metonymic configurations, and flashback and foreshadowing as temporal elements that disrupt time. We discuss all of these, in relationship to these disruptions and to our focal novels, next.
Sexuality and gender
We understand the social norms related to sexuality to be heterosexuality and the norms related to gender to be
Sexual norms are disrupted more explicitly in the other four books, although in different ways, depending on when and where they were set. The two novels that are set in the early 20th century in the U.S. south,
In
Like
Similarly, Alison, in
Just as sexual norms were disrupted in all of these five books, so too were gender norms. In fact, the disruption of sexual norms was often underscored by the disruption of gender norms. And, in the case of Mr. ast me the other day what it is I love so much about Shug. He say he love her style. He say to tell the truth, Shug act more manly than most men. I mean she upright, honest, speak her mind and the devil take the hindmost, he say. You know Shug will fight, he say. Just like Sofia. She bound to live her life and be herself not matter what. Mr. think all this stuff is stuff men do. But Harpo not like this. What Shug got is womanly it seem like to me. Specially since she and Sofia the ones got it. Sofia and Shug not like men, he say, but they not like women either. You mean they not like you or me. They hold they own, he say. And it’s different. (p. 269)
Here, what it means to be masculine or feminine is disrupted by Mr._____ and Celie’s focalization of the characters Shug and Sofia. The defining features or behaviors are about character, such as honesty and forthrightness, as well as physicality, such as the willingness to engage in sexual relationships and physical fights.
Mr. _____ associates such character and physicality with men, an association that Celie troubles. Mr. ______ says that he loves these qualities that he considers masculine, raising an implicit question about Mr. ______’s adherence to sexual norms. This question is raised, too, when Shug focalizes him. Shug is talking to Celie, encouraging her to wear pants instead of a dress:
She [Shug] say, Times like this, lulls, us ought do something different. Like what? I ast. Wells, she says, looking me up and down, let’s make you some pants. What I need pants for? I say. I ain’t no man. (p. 146)
Here, Celie conveys that she thinks only men can wear pants, and then she goes on to suggest that even if she wanted to wear pants, her husband would not allow it: “Mr. _____ not going to let his wife wear pants” (p. 146). In response, Shug tells Celie, “I used to put on Albert’s pants when he was courting. And he one time put on my dress . . . But he loved to see me in pants. It was like a red flag to a bull” (p. 147). In this account, Albert not only disrupts sexual norms by being impassioned by that which he understands as masculine, but he also disrupts gender norms by wearing a dress.
Perhaps more interestingly, the use of a metonymic configuration underscores the disruption of sexuality and gender. Early in the novel, both Celie and Mr. _____ are metonyms with Celie representing the expected patterns of behavior of women and Mr. performing hegemonic masculinity. She is modest, discreet, timid, compliant, and obedient; he is physically and verbally bullying and abusive, misogynistic, neglectful in relation to his wife and children, and so forth. As she comes to know Shug and Sofia, though, both of whom perform different ways of being a woman, Celie’s understandings of women and the associated behaviors gets disrupted, as do Mr. _____’s conceptions of masculinity through his interactions with Shug. In this way, gender norms are disrupted through metonymic configurations.
Six sequential panels across three pages of
In the first two panels, we see Alison and her father, in profile, in a booth at a diner in Philadelphia, a city bigger than the town in which they live. Alison stares intensely into the distance, and her father studies the menu. The next panel offers Alison’s view: the doorway to the diner as a delivery is made. Bechdel recalls, “In the city, in a luncheonette . . . we saw a most unsettling sight.” The “unsettling sight” is the delivery person, a woman, dressed in jeans, plaid shirt, short hair, key ring on her belt loop—that is, a woman performing masculinity and thus disrupting normalized constructions of gender. In the third panel, Alison continues to study the delivery woman as, again, Bechdel recalls,
I didn’t know there were women who wore men’s clothes and had men’s haircuts. But like a traveler in a foreign country who runs into someone from home—someone they’ve never spoken to, but know by sight—I recognized her with a surge of joy.
In other words, seeing this woman disrupting gender norms invites Alison, too, to disrupt gender norms, an invitation which she receives enthusiastically. Her enthusiasm, though, is met with disdain in the next panel where she and her father are shown up close, in profile, looking across the table at one another, as Bechdel recalls, “Dad recognized her too,” and her father leans in, asking Alison, “Is
These five queer novels, then, disrupt sexuality and gender norms in a variety of ways. One does this work by evading gender identification and thus calling into question sexual identification. Others disrupt norms associated with sexuality by representing same-sex desire and behavior and by having characters who explicitly claim nonheterosexual identities. These others also disrupt norms associated with gender with characters who assume some traits typically associated with the gender “opposite” theirs, characters who perform as the gender “opposite” theirs, and characters who reject their assigned gender in favor of their actual gender. Although they accomplish these disruptions in a variety of ways, all of them do this work, and it is imperative in literature if it is to be understood as queer.
Families and homes
We understand the social norms related to families and homes to be grounded in the fictional notion that all families comprise a father, mother, and their biological children and that such fictional families live together, but without anyone else, in a home, usually a house that they are working to own. All of the focal books disrupt such normative notions of families and homes, although in several different ways. Two of the books explicitly reject traditional notions of family, three of them celebrate alternative configurations of family, and two of them embrace a reconciliation of traditional and alternative families. (This totals seven rather than five books because we included two of the books in two categories.) Among these, there is much overlap between the disruption of families and the disruption of homes. Indeed, they are often intricately intertwined, as we present them here.
Both
But when he arrives at the place named in the letter, Skully’s Landing, Joel sees no evidence of his father in the decrepit mansion in an isolated Alabama community. He is greeted by Amy, who introduces herself as Joel’s father’s wife and therefore Joel’s stepmother, and Randolph, Amy’s first cousin and owner of Skully’s Landing. In other words, he is greeted by and comes to share a home with people who are only family by marriage to someone who Joel has never met before and meets only fleetingly in the novel. This feeling of being in the absence of family at Skully’s Landing is initially underscored by Randolph’s flamboyance, which Joel finds quite off-putting. Eventually, though, this flamboyance, an evolving understanding of Randolph’s homosexuality and cross-dressing, and Randolph’s declaration that
any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person’s nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell [are the things that allow Joel to accept his own homosexuality and accept Randolph as his alternative, queer family]. (p. 147)
His acceptance of a queer family is suggested in several scenes. For example, after Joel attempts to flee Skully’s Landing, he becomes ill and is returned to Skully’s Landing, where Randolph nurses him back to health. As he is recovering, he notices Randolph “blessedly near” (p. 206) and asks him whether he hates him for running away. In response, Randolph calls Joel, “baby” (p. 207), takes him in his arms and kisses his forehead, just as a parent might do. Once Joel recovers, he studies his maturing face in the mirror, and “All that displeased him was the brown straightness of his hair. He wished it were curly gold like Randolph’s” (p. 207). This might be understood as Joel wishing for a physical similarity that would suggest a biological or familial relation.
By the end of the novel, Joel rejects his dreams of straightness, as indicated by his refusal to reconnect with Idabel, the one person with whom he could imagine sharing a heterosexual relationship, but he never rejects his family of origin; rather, he is rejected by them. This is suggested when he is remembering his deaf cousin and how he used to taunt her,
But when he saw her again, why, he’d be so kind; he’d talk real loud so that she could hear every word, and he’d play those card games with her . . . But Ellen [his aunt] had never answered his letters. His own bloodkin. And she’d made so many promises. And she’d said she loved him. But she forgot. (p. 230)
In other words, Joel neither has an opportunity to reject his traditional family nor reconcile with it.
He does, however, have an opportunity to celebrate his alternative family, which he does when he reflects on what it is that makes a home a home. He learns what a home is from Little Sunshine, a local hermit and charm-maker, and Randolph, Joel’s uncle. Little Sunshine lives in a place Joel describes as old, slimy, evil-colored, wild, decaying, terrible, and strange, but, “it was his rightful home, [Little Sunshine] said, for if he went away, as he had once upon a time, other voices, other rooms, voices lost and clouded, strummed his dreams” (p. 100). Here, Little Sunshine teaches Joel that home, no matter how unappealing the house, is where one feels at peace. Later, Randolph teaches Joel that home is where people love you consistently as you are. It is after these lessons from Little Sunshine and Randolph that Joel comes to accept Skully’s Landing as his home, a place where he is at peace and surrounded by people who love him for who he is rather than a place provided for by his “bloodkin” (p. 230). Thus,
Unlike Joel, Alison in
In this scene, the significance of a naïve narrator, as a literary element, stands out. We experience the narrator, drawn in her younger form, as Alison, to be more naïve than the narrator, in her older form (Bechdel), and thus, less reliable. Leading up to the aforementioned scene, on pages 94 to 95, for example, the older Bechdel, in narration around the panels, recounts Alison’s experience of meeting Roy, the young man who was a babysitter and household helper to the family. The younger Alison is represented, in the panels, gazing at Roy and being drawn to his masculine gender and wanting to present herself in a similarly masculine way. At the same time, her father is also shown gazing at Roy, but his interest is focused on Roy’s male sexuality and his interest in Roy as a possible lover, something to which the younger Alison seems fully unaware. Then, in the scene described above, we see the younger Alison, after her father’s death, finding and examining the photo of Roy. Here, the older Bechdel analyzes this series of panels, narrating how she, as an adult, now understands her father in terms of his sexual identity, as well as her younger self, in terms of her own sexual identity as a lesbian, and her “family,” as her father experienced these relationships. Because of the layered focalization coupled with the intersections of the naïve Alison and the mature Bechdel, we experience not a singular narrative point of view, but multiple and shifting perspectives and, hence, multiple ideologies.
That Roy was included on a family vacation, and that his photo appears in the box of family photos in an envelope that the Dad has labeled “family,” reveals Bruce’s desire to create an alternative family. Nothing actually comes of this desire, though, and the resulting tension only breaks when Alison’s Dad walks in front of a truck, killing himself. Although alternative families are not constructed within the book, that Alison might one day create her own alternative family is suggested when her girlfriend Joan “came home with [her] for a visit” (p. 225). In other words, there is promise that alternative families are possibilities, even though they were not possible for Bruce.
It is the reconciliation of family, though, that holds the most promise in
Time
Just as normative notions of sexuality and gender and families and homes are disrupted, so too are normative notions of time. This is not a quality unique to queer texts, but it does seem to enhance the queer nature of already queer texts. We were particularly interested in scenes in which the chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981) or the time-space (McCallum, 1999) of the text is artistically distorted. Through these distortions, “normal” conceptions of time-space are suspended offering nonnormative renderings of time and space, which make these texts queer, as distinct from LGBT-inclusive texts. These queer conceptions of time are often rendered through literary elements, such as flashback and foreshadowing, as well as mode. As Cadden notes, “the romance or hero novel . . . is much more likely to offer the reader a multistranded narrative, or any sort of rearrangement of narrative time,” in contrast to the comedic mode (p. 305). Moreover, he asserts that “comedy and romance are at the heart of a conservative world view of returning to a previous order—things ‘go back to normal,’” whereas, “irony and tragedy are more upsetting” in that they are “modes of change—either random and absurd in the ironic or as the rebirth of a new order as in tragedy” (p. 306). The coupling of distortions of “normal” conceptions of time with the tragic or ironic mode reflects a confluence of queer and literary elements that mark the ideologies of these novels as queer.
This is most apparent in
Although all of the books use the ironic mode to disrupt expectations, to various degrees, There isn’t really a gay scene or a straight scene in our town. They got all mixed up a while back, which I think is for the best. Back when I was in second grade, the older gay kids who didn’t flee to the city for entertainment would have to make their own fun. Now it’s all good. Most of the straight guys try to sneak into the Queer Beer bar. Boys who love boys flirt with girls who love girls. And whether your heart is strictly ballroom or bluegrass punk, the dance floors are open to whatever you have to offer. (pp. 1-2)
Moreover, in this town, “P-FLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) is as big a draw as the PTA” (p. 115). This gay-friendliness plays out in Paul’s school life as well. For example, early in the book, we learn that Paul has “always known [he] was gay, but it wasn’t confirmed until [he] was in kindergarten” (p. 8), when, according to Paul, “It was my teacher who said so,” as we mention above. When Paul asked his teacher about her comment on his report card, she explained, finally saying, “What you feel is absolutely right for you. Always remember that” (p. 9). Then, later, when Paul is in sixth grade, he collaborates with several students to form their elementary school’s first GSA. They do so not as a way to help gay students unify with straight allies in the face of the school’s homophobia, as one might expect, but to help the straight kids. In Paul’s words, “Quite honestly, we took one look around and figured the straight kids needed our help. For one thing, they were all wearing the same clothes. Also (and this was critical), they couldn’t dance to save their lives” (p. 12). Given such characterizations, one might conclude that we are, in reading this book, in some post-homophobic future, or in a sort of magical realism space where homophobia is absent.
If it were such a time-space, there would be nothing ironic about this book. But, it turns out that we, as readers, cannot ignore the expectations of homophobia. There are small things that signal this, like the mentioning of how it was worse back when Paul was in second grade and then remembering that the teacher’s comment was made before that and the GSA a couple of years after that. But there are also larger things. There is a time when Paul is tackled and called, “queer, faggot, the usual” when leaving a screening of
It is the mostly but not entirely not-homophobic nature of the town that puts this novel in the ironic mode. We, as readers, come into the book expecting homophobia, and we encounter something different than we expected, thanks to Paul’s description of the town, Paul’s kindergarten teacher, and Paul’s motivation for starting a GSA. Then, we come to expect an absence of homophobia in this time-space, but our expectations are disrupted, by verbal assaults outside a movie theater, Tony’s parents, and Kyle’s fear, as examples. In this way,
Discussion
Our analysis of
It is not, however, just about being LGBT-inclusive. In fact, one might argue that
It is tempting, though, to say that queer literature must offer poststructural conceptions of sexual and gender identities in one of the main characters. Or, more explicitly, it must include a significant character, if not main character, whose sexual and gender identities are represented as multiple, variable, and fluid. The book
Other significant features of this collection of queer literature, and we argue queer literature more broadly, is the disruption of norms related to sexuality and gender as well as those related to families and homes. These books disrupt norms related to sexuality and gender by evading gender identification and thus calling into question sexual identification, as in
In looking for other sorts of disruptions of norms, we were compelled by disruptions of time across the queer literature we studied. As we say above, we do not understand this to be a quality unique to queer literature, but we were impressed with how artistic distortions of time enriched the already queer nature of the books. These disruptions happened with surreal scenes inserted among otherwise linear stories, as in
What is most important, though, is that these conceptualizations of identities and disruptions of norms have the effect of offering multiple and conflicting ideologies, particularly in relation to sexuality and gender. Sometimes, such ideologies are made available or at least made more visible through the use of literary devices, as is evident in the above discussion of time. In addition to mode, flashback, and foreshadowing, the use of focalization, the inclusion of naïve narrators, and the use of metonymic configurations can heighten readers’ attention to the queer and to the experience of characters being and becoming queer. Such heightened attention makes these ideologies more overtly visible and available to readers, which has implications especially for young adult readers, as we discuss below.
Therefore, what does queer literature look like? It offers multiple, variable, and conflicting conceptions of sexual and gender identities, including poststructural ones. It disrupts normative notions of sexuality, gender, families, and homes; and it disrupts other norms, too, in the case of these books, norms associated with time. Moreover, it uses a wide array of literary devices to accentuate the already queer nature of the text. Having identified what queer literature looks like, we now turn to what resources queer books might offer that are distinct from literature with LGBT themes, especially to young adult readers.
Implications
As we note in the opening of this article, making space for LGBTQQ literature in schools is still a challenge. Given these challenges, we initiated and facilitated an out-of-school book discussion group where we could privilege the reading and discussion of such literature with young people (Blackburn & Clark, 2011). That work allowed us to identify LGBT-inclusive and queer discourses evident in our talk and set the stage for our analysis, here, focused on the queer books that were read in that group and the specific ideological and literary elements in these books. While our earlier focus was on understanding types of discussions, our focus, here, is specifically on books, namely, queer literature.
This analysis allowed us to understand and name the multiple and conflicting ideologies that are manifest in queer literature, at least the five novels read by our group, and to characterize the key elements that make a book queer. Although these may not be evident in all queer literature, our analysis provides a framework for further analysis of contemporary, LGBT-themed YA literature (Clark & Blackburn, in press). And, while these particular books are not all sanctioned in schools, this analysis demonstrates that engaging with queer literature may provide critical resources to young adult readers by countering the invisible ideologies of heterosexism, misogyny, and homophobia that circulate in their daily lives (Martino, 2009; Pascoe, 2007). Understanding and naming the multiple and conflicting ideologies that are manifest in queer literature is one way to counter these forces. As McCallum and Stephens (2010) note, “literary discourse serves to produce, reproduce, and challenge ideologies” (p. 370). By reading such texts, even if not these particular texts, young people will at least experience narratives or characters who counter or critique these pervasive, normative ideologies.
While we recognize that reading and discussing queer texts in schools is not yet the norm, we know that scholars and educators are increasingly calling for and using queer and LGBT-themed texts in classrooms (see, for example, Carey-Webb, 2001; Hamilton, 1998; Schall & Kauffmann, 2003; Smith, 2007). Our hope is that this analysis will provide guidance, techniques, and even impetus for more teachers to do this work without unintentionally reinforcing heteronormativity. If teachers understand the ideological dimensions of queer literature, they can make ideologies of sexuality and gender explicit, inviting productive discussions of key issues such as “what ideologies are being depicted as the contemporary status quo, what are the problems with or limitations of those ideologies, and what are imagined as possible social or individual transformations of behaviors in opposition to them” (McCallum & Stephens, 2010, p. 370).
Examining texts for different conceptualizations of sexual and gender identities might invite students and teachers to interrogate assumed notions of identities as essential or even developmental. This might free a student who has been tagged as a fag or a dyke, even for years, of the burden of homophobia, even if only in his or her English language arts class. It might also liberate a student who has always understood himself or herself, and has always been understood by others, as straight, but who is struggling with a confusing attraction to a same-gender peer. In other words, exploring possibilities of sexual and gender identities that are multiple, variable, and fluid might alleviate some of the pressure of being or becoming someone who is socially acceptable and soothe the anxieties associated with being or becoming someone who is not. One could argue such an examination is supported by the Common Core Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), which challenge students to analyze “how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme” (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3).
Studying texts for disruptions of sexuality and gender norms provides students with a wider array of ways of being in the world. This might mean reflecting on the options of being a girl who engages in some behaviors typically associated with boys, like playing football; being a girl who sometimes performs boyhood, perhaps through her dress; or being a boy who was assigned the sex of female when he was born. This full range of options calls into question the notion of there being any particular, right, gendered way of being in the world. Analyzing texts that complicate notions of families and homes also has something to offer students. For any of the many students who come from families that are anything other than a mother and father raising their biological children or homes that house such families, complicating notions of families and homes can be a relief. Literature can, in this way, serve as a mirror (Bishop, 1992), not because any family or home looks just like any particular student’s family or home, but because something other than that which is falsely understood as traditional, normal, or even ideal is made visible in the literature when teachers help students see it. Even students who are part of families who look very much like traditional nuclear families have something to gain by studying queer literature that offers alternative families and homes. For them, the literature serves as a window, rather than a mirror (Bishop, 1992), and they are educated by such a view. They come to know there are families and homes quite different than their own, providing them opportunities to value and respect alternative families, but also opening up options for possibilities of what their families might be as they come to shape their own. Of course, interrogations of other norms, like time, but also any number of things, serves a similar purpose, that is to inform students to a wide array of ideologies, or ways of viewing the world that may support, complicate, or even contradict their own, thus better preparing them for the diverse world in which they live. Again, one might argue that such analysis is aligned with the new Common Core Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), which require that students analyze “author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it . . . and manipulate time” (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5).
Paying attention to literary elements, too, aligns this approach with more mainstream notions of what gets taken up in English language arts classrooms, providing impetus for the inclusion of queer literature in classrooms. Of course doing this work will require that more teachers, especially English language arts teachers, become familiar with and knowledgeable of queer conceptual frameworks. However, several resources already exist that invite English teachers to take up different literary theoretical lenses in the classroom (Appleman, 2000; Soter, Faust, & Rogers, 2007), including queer theory (Smith, 2007). This analysis adds to and extends these prior works. Teachers of literature are expected, indeed required, to guide students in analyzing literary elements in texts, and tying queer concepts to literary elements may provide a sanctioned way into studying queer concepts and ideologies. For teachers, the requirement of literary analysis may give queer texts a way into the classroom when teachers know how to analyze queer texts. For students in such classrooms, the inverse might also be true. Perhaps LGBTQQ and ally students might find themselves drawn to literary studies when they are connected to queer concepts. Finally, for teachers and students, engaging with queer literature provides opportunities to exist and thrive in the realm of the queer, a space where multiple ideologies and conflicting ideologies around sexuality and gender can circulate and be considered, examined, embraced, or rejected by the reader, rendering the text more open and less settled, and the space of the classroom, as a whole, more queer.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.