Can modernism's fractured narratives be interpreted as metaphors for queer interiority? This question poses an intriguing challenge to scholars who study both literature and psychoanalysis. On one hand, modernist texts often feature fragmented structures that resist traditional narrative conventions.
Some argue that this disruption can be read as a reflection of the inner life of the protagonists, particularly those who are navigating their own non-normative sexual identities. This interpretation suggests that queerness is not just about external behavior but also about internal experiences and desires. In order to explore this idea further, let's examine three major examples from modernist fiction: Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Jean Rhys' Good Morning, Midnight.
Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa Dalloway throughout a single day in London, moving back and forth through time and space. The novel lacks a clear chronology or structure, and its events are often presented out of order. Some critics have argued that this reflects Clarissa's own fragmented psychic state, which includes memories of her youthful love affairs with women.
She remembers a moment when she kissed Sally Seton, her childhood friend and lover, under the trees at Bourton. While the memory itself occurs years before the main action of the story, it shows how Clarissa's mind flits between past and present, recalling moments that were formative to her queer identity.
Several other characters in the novel grapple with gender and sexuality issues, such as Septimus Warren Smith, who commits suicide after being institutionalized for his "shell shock" (PTSD). By interweaving these themes into the text, Woolf creates a nuanced exploration of queer experience that defies traditional narrative conventions.
Ulysses is even more experimental than Mrs. Dalloway, featuring stream-of-consciousness writing and a nonlinear plot that spans multiple days in Dublin. Likewise, some scholars suggest that its disjointed style mirrors the inner lives of its protagonists, particularly Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, both of whom struggle with their identities as Jews and homosexuals. Throughout the novel, Bloom has thoughts about his bisexual desires, while Stephen recalls a traumatic encounter with an older man he met in a park. By refusing a straightforward chronology or linear progression, Joyce presents the messiness and complexity of human experience, including queerness.
Good Morning, Midnight tells the story of Sasha Jansen, a middle-aged woman living alone in Paris during World War II. The book features flashbacks to her youthful romance with Robert, as well as her current relationship with a married man named Jean. Some readers have noted parallels between Sasha's internal life and the novel's fragmentary structure, which seems to reflect her own fractured identity.
She often struggles to reconcile different parts of herself: her sexuality, her profession as a singer, her relationships with men, and her German heritage. Rhys thus suggests that interiority and queerness are intertwined concepts, both difficult to express through traditional narratives.
These three modernist texts challenge our understanding of narrative form by presenting complex psychic states that go beyond conventional notions of character development and plot progression. They also offer intriguing insights into queer experience by suggesting that it is rooted in the mind and body, rather than just external behavior. As such, they demonstrate how literature can reveal the inner lives of its characters, even when those lives are considered taboo or unconventional.
Can modernism's fractured narratives be interpreted as metaphors for queer interiority?
The representation of queerness through fragmented narratives has been a recurrent theme in modernist literature since its inception in the late 19th century. While some critics have argued that this form is simply a reflection of the disjointed nature of modern society at large, others contend that it can also function as a metaphor for the experience of queer individuals who are often forced to conceal their true selves due to social stigma and discrimination.