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The Echo of An Echo: Exploring Queer Themes in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Olalla”

“It was his mind that puzzled, and yet attracted me...”

This story is not one of Stevenson’s that I was interested in or even knew about before I started my research, but I quickly realized that this was a very queer story. In this post, I will be reviewing the story, providing analysis, and arguing the following:

Through the use of gothic tropes like familial & emotional degeneracy, derelict settings, and the homoerotic triangle between key characters, “Olalla” expresses that both experiencing and repressing queer desire results in the same fate in the Victorian Gothic: danger and destruction.

This story begins with a sick Scottish soldier discussing his condition with his doctor. The doctor recommends that the soldier turn to Spain to take respite from his injuries, soon recommending a stay at a home owned by a formerly noble family.

“[T]hey were once great people, and are now fallen to the brink of destitution. Nothing now belongs to them but the residencia, and certain leagues of desert mountain, in the greater part of which not even a goat could support life.”

If you know anything about the Gothic genre, you know that dereliction, destitution, and decay are three common “D words”  when it comes to settings of stories in the genre. The residencia (Spanish for home or residence) is also placed in a normally Gothic setting: Southern Europe. The idea of the residencia being in desert and being unable to support any life, much less the one of a goat, is of particular interest. I asked myself then, how could the Senora and company live there? Numerous other stories, including the ones of Vernon Lee, are set in Southern Europe, primarily because of the associations that region had with homosexuality, loss, and dereliction. It also seems to allow for the displacement of British issues to a “foreign” soil, firmly keeping issues out of the “pristine” British culture.

However, when the soldier is told of the residencia that he will be living in, he seems to express interest into it, and the doctor provides him with more information about the inhabitants, a family of three: the Senora, Felipe, and Olalla. It is expected that the narrator will remain a stranger to them, primarily because of their seeming “plainness” as described by the doctor. However, the doctor goes on to describe the family as such:

“The mother was the last representative of a princely stock, degenerate both in parts and fortune. [...] Then, much of the fortune having died with [her father], and the family being quite extinct, the girl ran wilder than ever, until at last she married, Heaven knows whom, a muleteer some say, others a smuggler; while there are some who uphold there was no marriage at all, and that Felipe and Olalla are bastards.”

Ultimately, it isn’t known for sure what happened to the father of the family, even some of the old priests are unsure. But, the existence of the phrase  ��degenerate both in parts and fortune” seems to imply some form of sexual, physical, or cognitive difference, perhaps an intersex character. It also appears that she is hypersexualized given that she went “wilder than ever” following her father’s death. This seems to lean into the degeneracy part of the story. Because of this, the doctor continued to insist that the narrator should not “romance” at the residencia.

Soon though we are introduced to Felipe, the “quasi-patriarch” of the derelict residencia. Felipe is also seemingly “degenerate”, but perhaps less so than the mother, and it is apparent that he is unable to make full sentences, or even words, and the narrator reflects on this:

“The lad was but a child in intellect; his mind was like his body, active and swift, but stunted in development; and I began from that time forth to regard him with a measure of pity, and to listen at first with indulgence, and at last even with pleasure, to his disjointed babble”

To make the post shorter than it is, please click below to keep reading!

This seems to imply that there is some form of homoerotic attraction between the two, particularly because he finds “pleasure” in listening to Felipe. After arriving at the residencia and setting up shop, the narrator sees a portrait. The portrait, as it seems, bears a resemblance to Felipe, which is a peculiar connection that the narrator realizes. He finds this resemblance rather unsettling, and it seems that the pleasure is replaced by discomfort. He says the following:

“Something in both face and figure, something exquisitely intangible, like the echo of an echo, suggested the features and bearing of my guide; and I stood awhile, unpleasantly attracted and wondering at the oddity of the resemblance”

Clearly, the narrator is not comfortable with this implied homoerotic attraction, but does not dare to go against it; that being said, he later says the following:

“[M]y eyes continued to dwell upon [the portrait] with growing complacency; its beauty crept about my heart insidiously, silencing my scruples one after another; and while I knew that to love such a woman were to sign and seal one’s own sentence of degeneration, I still knew that, if she were alive, I should love her. [...] She came to be the heroine of many day-dreams, in which her eyes led on to, and sufficiently rewarded, crimes”

This is where I see the formation of the first of two homoerotic triangles within this story (if unfamiliar, the post where I describe the homoerotic triangle is here); the second involves Olalla, Felipe, and the narrator. However, I argue that the “crimes” in question involve autosexual urges, like masturbation and self-pleasure, and because of these pleasures coming through the portrait, they are also associated with queer desire for Felipe. The face of Felipe and the Senora seems to be duplicated, which is a symptom of incest, which is what the degeneracy position could be leaning into. 

But, the relation with Felipe would increasingly become homoerotic in the coming days of the narrator’s stay in the residencia, notedly the following:

“[H]e loved to sit close before my fire, talking his broken talk or singing his odd, endless, wordless songs, and sometimes drawing his hand over my clothes with an affectionate manner of caressing that never failed to cause in me an embarrassment of which I was ashamed.”

Seemingly, this is a quote that speaks to the repression of the queer eroticism that I got at during the first part of this post. However, it does seem that this became a frequent thing, not just a one-time thing, and that the narrator enjoyed these caresses because he did not actively try to stop them. Even if shame was such a potent feeling for the narrator, pleasure came through rough emotions.

We must not forget that there was a second triangle and that queer anxieties were still present in the story throughout, especially when it came to choosing who the narrator loved the best or preferred, with him even writing that of the two (i.e., Felipe and the Senora), he preferred the Senora and liked her the best. However, the existence of this comparison seems to imply that he liked them both in a dubiously worded way, perhaps romantically, sexually, or platonically. But, it may also seem that he is trying to protect himself from allegations of homoeroticism by placing his desires somewhere safer, like onto a woman. It is up to interpretation.

That being said, the Senora had a similar pleasurability to the narrator than Felipe did, and he soon describes it as the following:

“I had come to like her dull, almost animal neighbourhood; her beauty and her stupidity soothed and amused me. I began to find a kind of transcendental good sense in her remarks, and her unfathomable good nature moved me to admiration and envy. The liking was returned; she enjoyed my presence half-unconsciously, as a man in deep meditation may enjoy the babbling of a brook”

I don’t truly know if the narrator actively sought out the Senora in the same way as he did Felipe or Olalla, but there could be evidence that he used both of the women as objects of affection that funneled affections for Felipe away from him. However, he does describe the woman with animalian terms in this above passage, which sort of adds to her docility and lack of active affections. I will discuss the possibility of the objectification of the women later.

With that said, there is a sense of potential sexual activity between Felipe and the narrator. The narrator writes:

“By the time Felipe brought my supper and lights, my nerve was utterly gone; and, had the lad been such as I was used to seeing him, I should have kept him (even by force had that been necessary) to take off the edge from my distasteful solitude”

What the narrator wanted to do with Felipe, I do not know, but it appears that there must have been a sexual aspect, perhaps one of coercion, to their relationship. Forcing Felipe to stay with him seems both romantic but also problematic for the narrator, and it sort of sheds light on the bond the two had built together. It does seem, however, that the narrator could be in denial about his feelings, as he writes later about an interaction with Felipe:

“I took his hand in mine, at which, thinking it to be a caress, he smiled with a brightness of pleasure that came near disarming my resolve.”

I truly think that this is one of the closer moments we reach homoerotic tensions bubbling over between the two. The narrator has made it abundantly clear that he enjoys the pleasure and happiness that Felipe exhibits around him, so it would make sense that following that logic, he could be more likely to lose his “resolve” to stay heterosexual exclusively with the pleasure that comes from Felipe. The repression of those homoerotic desires seems to be what he searches for as his primary resolution and he’s trying to desperately keep his facade of being heterosexual, but simply isn’t able to, even if funneling affections through two women.

Eventually, Olalla must step into the picture here as well. Felipe is good and all, but it appears that his relationship and enjoyment at the residencia comes from his meeting with the hermetic Olalla:

“My foot was on the topmost round, when a door opened, and I found myself face to face with Olalla. Surprise transfixed me; her loveliness struck to my heart; she glowed in the deep shadow of the gallery, a gem of colour; her eyes took hold upon mine and [bound] us together like the joining of hands; and the moments we [..] stood face to face, drinking each other in, were sacramental and the wedding of souls”

I like to argue that Olalla looks a bit better than the Senora and Felipe, because she has the first glowing review from the narrator of the entire family. She’s a “diamond in the rough” to the narrator, a gem of color. Already, it seems like the narrator is ready to marry and disappear with her. With that in mind, the resolve of the narrator comes back into view, and that his transfixing on Olalla perhaps a displacement of his feelings for Felipe:

“I swore I should make her mine; and that very evening I set myself, with a mingled sense of treachery and disgrace, to captivate the brother. Perhaps I read him with more favourable eyes, perhaps the thought of his sister always summoned up the better qualities of that imperfect soul; but he had never seemed to me so amiable, and his very likeness to Olalla, while it annoyed, yet softened me.”

Here, we have a displacement of the love for Felipe onto Olalla and vice versa. Personally, I think this truly indicates that the narrator’s only focus is to be one of Felipe’s affections, especially because Olalla is so beautiful herself. Perhaps, though, the narrator is trying to lean into polygamous desires and wants the both of them. However, the love of Olalla and Felipe is shortened throughout the latter half of the story, and Olalla has some closing remarks to the narrator:

“Think of me sometimes as one to whom the lesson of life was very harshly told, but who heard it with courage; as one who loved you indeed, but who hated herself so deeply that her love was hateful to her; as one who sent you away and yet would have longed to keep you for ever; who had no dearer hope than to forget you, and no greater fear than to be forgotten.”

This quote is particularly important to me because it showcases that the erotic desires of the narrator seemed to be in vain, and that both queer and heterosexual desires are ones of fragility and can be fallen in a sudden strike of the proverbial hand; this quote speaks to me as one of cautionary failures of the narrator. By failing to captivate either Olalla or Felipe, the narrator is left behind without either of them, ostensibly only wanting to have Olalla. The narrator’s exile seems to be important, and it may signal that queer people were unable to fit into the rigid family structure of the Victorian period, and that the exile was an inevitable result of transgression from traditional family structures.

Analysis:

Through these quotes and numerous others, it appears to me that there are many aspects of the queer Gothic within this story: 

Because of the dubious sexual nature of the story, it seems that a lot of the queerness from this story stems from non-sexual romantic escapades. The existence of the homoerotic triangles provides detail and mystery to this story because it allows for room for interpretation. The Felipe-Olalla-narrator triangle seems to stem from degeneracy and familial incest, because Felipe and Olalla look the same. 

However, it must also be noted that the degeneracy of the location of the story, a tucked-away old castle house, seems to be a result (or perhaps cause of) the degeneracy of the family. The Gothic worldwide seems to lean into these degenerate themes by allowing for stories to fix themselves within the genre, take those themes, and run with them. 

I would also like to note that I think the triangles between the family members and the narrator are also a symptom of this larger degeneracy, and that the relationship between Felipe and the narrator is seen as “degenerate” as a result. 

I also posit that the ending of the story, with the forcing of the narrator to leave the residencia, also stems from the degeneracy of his volition; he seems to be unable to fend for himself and argue on his behalf, therefore allowing his volition to implode. 

He so clearly wants to live with this family, and love them, but Olalla insists, and he acquiesces to this request without seeming to put up a fight; this may signify his emotional degeneracy. Perhaps he has been too blase to see that the family will eventually get rid of him, perhaps he’s locked behind queer sorrow and shame for what he has done while at this home, or just perhaps he is ashamed that his queerness, which has been so repressed, is unable to work within his “family.”

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Queered Gothic: An Introduction to Queer Victorian Gothic Theory

In a time of massive societal change, queer people persisted (and were even written about)!

Welcome to the QVA (Queer Victorian Archive)! This is the first of many posts I hope to make about stories within the Victorian literary canon with queer themes. However, we must begin with some frequent frameworks I shall work with. These are frameworks that may apply to one story, many stories, or may even apply to all stories posted about. However, the purpose of this post is to allow you to understand the terms I will frequently reference.

Firstly, I’ve used numerous scholarly sources, which will be referred to in the citation section below the cut on this post. However, I’ve decided to also place them here. In sum, I will be sourcing from Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume I, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet & Between Men, and the works of Ardel Haefele-Thomas. Below are some key terms that these authors use to refer to Victorian-period sex, sexuality, and gender:

Repressive Hypothesis (Foucault): In the first volume of his History of Sexuality (1976), Foucault fundamentally argues that modern sexuality and sexual tensions are a product of a repressive era of time, roughly corresponding to the 17th through 20th centuries. He argues that under this era, it may appear that human sexuality and gender expression were repressed, but in fact, it was quite the opposite, and it appears that sexual discourses blossomed in the period rather than being functionally oppressed. Through medical, social, political, and other discourses in the 19th century, sex and particularly homosexuality was functionally controlled by a group who sought to distance Victorians from “sexual perversion”. Foucault also argues that sex has had a power structure hold over us, and therefore power, knowledge, and sex are intermingled among one another, and that sex has come to define us in a way that is both controlling but also sometimes freeing.

Homoerotic Triangles (Sedgwick): In her Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985), Eve Sedgwick argues that the relationship between men in literature has towed the fine line between sexual and platonic through the use of homosocial desire to negate homosexual desire/panic. Essentially, homosocial desire describes the existence of very strong bonds between men that they, in turn, fear could lean into homosexual desire. Through this, Sedgwick argues that English literature often has a triangular relationship, deemed a (homo)erotic triangle. In this triangle, two men often have a desire for one another, but use a woman as a channel to which they can focus this desire without slipping into homosexuality or homosociality. The woman often serves as the connecting point for the homosocial desires, and acts as a sort of conduit.

The Queer Victorian Gothic (Haefele-Thomas): Finally, one of my most important frameworks is directly from the Edinburgh Companion for the Victorian Gothic, and is from Chapter IX by Ardel Haefele-Thomas, “Queer Victorian Gothic”. Haefele-Thomas argues in this chapter that a lot of narratives within Victorian literature that are Gothic fundamentally have queer themes, characters, or tropes, primarily because of how much space that the Gothic gave writers. Particularly, she argues that the existence of these themes, characters, and/or tropes were allowed to be explored through numerous means, especially through familial worries, legal issues, and/or medical maladies. She also argues that the Gothic tended to be a liminal genre in the Victorian era, straddling between the “normative” novel genre and something quite different, which allowed for it to be explored more openly. She writes:

“[I]t allowed many nineteenth-century authors to look at social and cultural worries consistently haunting Victorian Britain even as the official discourse worked tirelessly to silence those concerns.”

She also goes on to argue that, because of a stratified, rigid nuclear family culture, these transgressive identities showed themselves only through secretive means; they stayed the “family secret”. It is also to say that the laws surrounding homosexuality were also taken into account at this period, and there were clearly anxieties surrounding transgressiveness and how a socially conservative culture would be changed by these transgressions. She also argues that the pathologization of queer people became common, writing:

“Definitions of disease began to diligently include and pathologize anyone who was not clearly heterosexual and who did not clearly ascribe to a strictly masculine or strictly feminine demeanour.”

While the Gothic allowed for the exploration of these facets of human identity, a wide variety of localized parts of the identity were explored, particularly sex, sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, among numerous other aspects.

It is possible that from time to time, I will source other scholars and their writings, but this is just a brief summary of what I’ve studied thus far and have the most expertise. I will primarily be focusing on short stories at this time, but will migrate into other media eventually. With that in mind, my next posts will be focused on queer readings of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story “Olalla”, as well as Vernon Lee’s decadently queer “A Wicked Voice”.

Below: Citations!

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. United Kingdom, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1990.

Haefele-Thomas, Ardel. “Queer Victorian Gothic.” The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, edited by Andrew Smith and William Hughes, Edinburgh University Press, 2012, pp. 142–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt3fgt3w.13. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Italy, Columbia University Press, 1985. Accessed 25 Jul. 2024

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Tying it All Together: Viewing Jekyll and Hyde, Goblin Market, and The Moonstone in a Queer Lens (post 5/5)

In sum of my previous posts, I seek to tie these ideas of homosexual and non-heteronormative characters together in this one post.

I fundamentally will always argue, and argue here and in previous posts, that Victorian literature, and the literary canon overall, are up to interpretation, and there is no one specific way to read any book literally ever. However, applying some queer theory to close reading of texts allows for anyone interested in that topic to fundamentally challenge conceptions of Victorian-era sexuality and gender.

In all, the three texts I have written about, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Goblin Market, and The Moonstone, have all been testaments to how variegated the Victorian literary canon is, and how stories even without many similarities can fundamentally be connected by one string: homosexual identities.

Throughout these texts, there are many places where they can line up with these ideas of homosexuality in literature, namely in places like Jekyll and Hyde's "syphilitic" episode, Lizzie and Laura's fruit "feast", and Ezra and Franklin's "doorway gazing" moments upon meeting. These simple, yet somehow complex, moments all signify, as I argue, a movement in Victorian society to display non-heterosexual or non-heteronormative ideals in a time strictly divided based on gender and class systems that were put in for centuries.

They all connect in this endeavor, an endeavor I think is enough. Scholars seem to generally agree with me, at least some do. Some argue that these texts, and others written by similar authors, can be read in exactly this light, with some variation in interpretation, but that is to be expected. I do sincerely hope my explanations were as clear and concise as possible, while also giving a fun read to anyone interested in the topics of queer theory, Victorian literature, and other relative topics.

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Notoriously Androgynous Ezra v. Masculine Gentleman Franklin: Understanding the Queer Relationship between Ezra Jennings and Franklin Blake in Collins's The Moonstone (post 4/5)

How one quote changed the whole meaning of a relationship between a masculine and sexually indifferent character.

"The door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most remarkable-looking man that I had ever seen..." (326)

Right off the bat, this quote from the Third Narrative of The Moonstone, recounted by Franklin Blake, signifies a queer identity forming in the novel. Some have argued that this, and Ezra's general strange, peculiar, or otherwise queer aura, existence in the novel, or otherwise being, is a signification of the understanding of sexual and gender fluidity in the Victorian era. Some scholars, like Ardel Haefele-Thomas, argue that Ezra himself is meant to be an enigma, and given ideas of his biraciality, undetermined sexual goals, and the fact he completed the marriage plot in the novel, is important to understanding increasingly changing ideas of sexual and gender expression. Haefele-Thomas argues the following:

"There are several curious and ambivalent points in Franklin's description of Ezra Jennings. Part of what makes Jennings 'remarkable-looking' is his biraciality...Ezra Jennings fully embodies the uncomfortable grey areas between [binaries of Indian/Anglo [...], female/male, and homosexual/heterosexual." (34-36)

Now, there are other stones I have yet to overturn, including how this fits into a homosexual theme. Well, I argue that Franklin is miraculously attracted to Ezra in a way that he doesn't even want. Collins writes on Chapter IX of the third narrative:

"...it is not to be denied that Ezra Jennings made some inscrutable appeal to my sympathies, which I found it impossible to resist. While my knowledge of the world warned me to answer the question which he had put, […] my interest in Ezra Jennings held me rooted to the place"

Blake is officially aware of his strange attraction to Jennings by this point, and it does come to fruition that he finally cannot resist Jennings because of his apparent beauty, even if stereotypes and norms tell him to do so. I argue this is important because it shows yet another homosexualization of Victorian literature in a perspective where I wouldn't expect it to appear.

If you liked this, feel free to share, comment, or just simply like/reblog. If you have any other ways of reading this novel, feel free to let me know!

Below the cut: Citations!

Haefele-Thomas, Ardel. “The Spinster and the Hijra: How Queers Save Heterosexual Marriage in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and The Moonstone.” Queer Others in Victorian Gothic: Transgressing Monstrosity, 1st ed., University of Wales Press, 2012, pp. 8–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qhdw4.5. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.

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The Ballad of Laura and Lizzie: A Queer Reading of Rosetti's Goblin Market (post 3/5)

How "Come buy, come buy" became a symbol for lesbian love in the Victorian era.

This poem... what can I say about it more than it is VERY vivid, VERY capitalistic, and VERY (or... kind of) problematic. I first learned of it during my first semester at university, in a Victorian literature and culture class. I presented on it. It was kind of scary.

But first, a plot summary of this wacky poem:

The story begins with vivid imagery of goblins (i.e., short, fanged men) selling fruit within a glen, exclaiming "Come buy, come buy" throughout the days and nights. Rosetti gives us an extensive list of many fruits, most of which are exotic to the British homeland. Laura, the tempted one in the story, soon falls into temptation at the climax of the poem. She is enveloped by the goblin's fruit and soon begins to wither. Lizzie then buys the fruit for Laura and they embrace and continue on life as it was before, yet always tainted by the fruit of the goblins.

Now, some queer analysis!

In Queer Victorian Identities, author Johnathan Hay argues the following:

"In their relation toward each other, Laura and Lizzie appear to be extraordinarily intimate for sisters, 'Crouching close together' in 'Among the brookside rushes', and spending copious amounts of time together 'Evening by evening'"

To be abundantly fair, this poem reeks of lesbian love affairs, even if that does come at the cost of incestuous relationships between the sisters. In particular, I argue that the lines below are indicative of a lesbian allegory, even if that term was not in use at the time:

"Eat me, drink me, love me; / Laura, make much of me"

However, this really, really isn't the only place of... unbridled sexualization of this relationship? Consider the following lines:

"She kiss’d and kiss’d her with a hungry mouth. / Her lips began to scorch..."

Now, if you think this can be read in some other way, just let me know. But, as far as I'm concerned, this is absolutely a sapphic/lesbian allegory for a time where queer identity was notoriously masqueraded behind the Gothic. Further, I argue, like Hay argues, that the relationship between the sisters goes far beyond just familial ties, and that the quotes I've detailed are, by and large, significations of a queer aspect of the poem.

As with Jekyll and Hyde, this seems a peculiar way to express queer love, and I genuinely agree with this assumption. They both are weird. That's the purpose of the Gothic genre.

However, if you disagree with either of these readings, feel free to comment, like, share, etc. Next on the agenda will be a queer reading of the relationship between notoriously flamboyant and androgynous Ezra Jennings and the rugged, masculine Franklin Blake from Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone.

Under the cut: Citations!

Hay, J. (2018). Queer Victorian Identities in Goblin Market (1862) and In Memoriam (1850): Uncovering the Subversive Undercurrents of the Literary Canon. Exclamat!on: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 149 - 172

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Hyding in the Closet: A Queer Argument for Jekyll's Homosexuality (post 2/5)

How drinking an impurely-made potion to separate one from oneself can be read as homosexuality.

For as long as I could remember, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has lived, fully rent-free, in my head. For anyone out of the loop, here's a brief summary, per the beloved BBC:

"Dr[.] Jekyll is a kind, well-respected and intelligent scientist who meddles with the darker side of science, as he wants to bring out his 'second' nature. He does this through transforming himself into Mr[.] Hyde - his evil alter ego who doesn't repent or accept responsibility for his evil crimes and ways. Jekyll tries to control his alter ego, Hyde, and for a while, Jekyll has the power. However, towards the end of the novel, Hyde takes over and this results in their deaths" (BBC).

Now, to be fair, this is all in brief, so take the summary with a grain of salt.

Now, it's time for the juicy details:

For well over a century, scholars have offered numerous readings of this novella, with some writing the story off as simply just good vs. evil, but also some arguing that Hyde is Jekyll's homosexual desires fitted into a gothic framework, and that Hyde is Jekyll's infatuation and object of desire. I, as a queer theorist, am obligated to believe this. For example, in Dr. Jekyll's Closet, queer theorist Elaine Showalter writes:

"Jekyll's apparent infatuation with Hyde reflects the late-nineteenth-century upper-middle-class eroticization of working-class men as the ideal homosexual objects." (pg. 7)

Also on pg. 7, Showalter writes the following about Jekyll's unbridled masculinity:

"The mirror [i.e., in Jekyll's cabinet] testifies not only to Jekyll's scandalously unmanly narcissism, but also to the sense of the mask and the Other that has made the mirror an obsessive symbol in homosexual literature." (pg. 7)"

Keeping these ideas in mind, I argue that Jekyll and Hyde is a queer story. Stevenson, the author of the novella, had questionable sexual desires and an undetermined sexuality, even if he was married to a woman. I also argue that Hyde is really what thoughts, feelings, and desires Jekyll wanted to keep down, hidden, and clandestine. He attempts to separate himself from himself and the result includes (but is not limited to) several murders, deaths, and suicides.

Hyde, to me, represents the cultural and societal opinions of homosexual desires in the Victorian era: a mysterious, freaky, and unwelcomed presence that seems to pervade any sphere it finds itself in. Showalter writes about the representation of Hyde on page nine, writing:

"Hyde is represented as apelike, pale, and inexpressibly deformed, echoing the imagery of syphilitic afflictions in nineteenth-century medical texts, and Utterson [i.e., the lawyer narrator] speculates that Jekyll may have contracted a disease from Hyde..." (pg. 9)

Now, I'm not saying anything, but this reads to me as being an absolutely uncanny description of homoerotic acts taking place within Jekyll and Hyde's living quarters.

Jekyll remarks to Utterson on page 20 of my copy:

"...[T]his is a private matter [i.e., the relationship b/w Jekyll and Hyde], and I beg of you to let it sleep." (20)

This indicates to me that there is a peculiar relationship or dynamic between Jekyll and Hyde, and that, even if it is just a surface-level peculiarity, it still is specifically strange.

However, we can really see where this text can be read in a different light, in even myriads of lights or perspectives, and I genuinely do not think there is a definitive way to read any text. With that being said, I find it important that we do consider this possibility that Jekyll and Hyde were either lovers, a part of one another, or some other tangential relation pattern seen as deviant in the Victorian era.

Feel free to comment your opinions, and also feel free to like, reblog, or share to other websites. On the docket next is the relationship between Lizzie and Laura in Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market and how this story can be read as a lesbian allegory.

Below the cut: citations!

Showalter, Elaine. “Dr. Jekyll’s Closet.” Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle, Virago Press, 2010, pp. 105–27.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Robert Mighall. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories. Penguin Books, 2003.

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Queerin' Theory: An Introduction to Queer Theory (post 1/5)

How the intersection between the lives of many affects and influences the lives of few.

As the first of (hopefully) many Victorian literature blog posts I plan to make, this is a post with one explicit purpose: to lay the groundwork for understanding queer theory in a literary context.

First, though, some terms used in queer theory:

Queer studies - According to Robert Dale Parker, "a deconstructive version of gay and lesbian studies, a version that contemplates a wider variety of sexualities and orientations than can fit under the labels of gay and lesbian." With this being said, queer studies does not necessarily imply gay or lesbian studies. Rather, it implies that there is instability and continuity in the creation of the identity that falls outside of the purview of gay, lesbian, or even homosexual.

Naturalization of heterosexuality - Also according to Parker, the idea that everyone, no matter what, is heterosexual unless defined or labeled otherwise. Alternatively, the idea is that heterosexuality is the natural state and that, unless noted otherwise, everything is heterosexual.

Homosexual panic - Defined as the idea of straight people, or people of uncertain sexuality, being concerned or anxious as potentially being labeled as "homosexual" in a culture of homophobia.

Compulsory heterosexuality - Finally, defined as the idea that you must be heterosexual or something is awry/wrong/messed up with you.

Of course, there are more terms I haven't time to review and type, but I really find it important that these terms are defined before I start comparing texts in the Victorian era that are shaped by queer readings.

Feel free to comment and please like if you enjoyed this very brief dictionary of queer studies and queer theory.

Below the cut: Citations and images

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Bibliography: Parker, Robert D. How to Interpret Literature. Available from: Oxford University Press, (4th Edition). Oxford University Press Academic US, 2019.