Final Paper 2 of Possible 3
posted by Michael | 5/01/2007 01:53:00 PM
Contributors
- Class: Empire (1 page)
- Carrie Nelson, MRG Jameson, Race Sexualities, Sexu...
- "Postmodernism" Essay: Class (1 page)
- Pack: Badiou Part 3 Evil
- Class: Badiou Part 3 Evil
- Pack: Badiou Parts 1 and 2 of 3
- Class: Badiou Part 1 and 2 of 3
- Bibliography 2 (of possible 2)
- Bibliography 1 (of possible 2)
- Pack: Porto Alegre
2 Comments:
Maria Fernanda Castro
AML 4242
Prof. Michael Rowley
3rd March 2007
Queer Theory for Dummies; A reading of Queer Theory.
“The subject painfully identifies himself with the person (or character) who occupies the same position as himself in the amorous structure ,” Roland Barthes.
Commonly, Queer Theory has been viewed by the homosexual community as a way to identify with one another, and to create a common ground through which they can express themselves with less restrictions from society. However, it is not entirely certain if the creation of a common identity for homosexual men and women will be successful to help them cope with the pressure they are inflicted with and the one they inflict upon themselves. If the reader can grasp the importance that the sense of identity has upon creating a common ground for the homosexual community, then the reader can also grasp the importance that Queer Theory has upon creating the basis for queer thinking and to create a path to tolerance of the homosexual community throughout the world. In Fact, Queer Theory has been useful to take some mystery off the topic, to allow the homosexual community to better understand one another and to create a sense of community to help each other with homophobia and discrimination from the mainstream.
Some terms in the range of human sexuality, gender, desire and normativity overlap each other and impede Queer Theory to be fully understood. In order to solve this problem, the definitions of these terms shall be fully explained. By defining Queer Theory, modern theorists are aiming to detach the taboos associated with the issue of overlapping sexual norms. In addition, homosexuality shall be explored as an issue of desire, not gender. First, an apt definition of Queer Theory is required. In “Critical Theory Today: a users-friendly guide,” Lois Tyson defines Queer theory in the following terms: “ [it] reads texts to reveal the problematic quality of representations of sexual categories, in other words, to show the various ways in which the categories homosexual or heterosexual break down, overlap, or do not adequately represent the dynamic range of human sexuality.” (Tyson 338). In order to understand Queer Theory, one must first understands the problematic within the range of sexuality that is overlapping the different categories. Then, Queer Theory shall be understood in order to alleviate those who suffer from the effects of heterosexual masculinity and femininity.
First, the term gender shall be explored in relation to sexuality. Also, a distinction between femininity and masculinity shall be drawn in order to better understand the overlapping of these terms. Gender is defined as following in “Beyond Sexuality” by Tim Dean. It is the force that denaturalizes sexual differences and makes sex the question of social and historical conventions (Dean 7). This definition has been highly disputed through time by other theorists. For instance, in “Gender Trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity” by Judith Butler, the views of Simone de Beauvoir on gender as it being only feminine are explained. The female, is the ‘Other’ to her, and there is no other gender other than the female gender. This definition is disputed by Judith Butler. She argues that there is a clear distinction between sex and gender. “A gender cannot be said to follow from a sex in any one way” (Butler 6). The female is not the ‘Other’ in a sense of lack of manhood, for that the men can not follow from the masculine nor the female from the feminine.
Accordingly, a clear distinction between sex and gender is further expanded to explain desire in terms of gender and how it affects queer theory. This is done by Butler and Dean as it applies to Queer Theory. This distinction between gender and sex “mirrors sex or it is
otherwise restricted by it” (Butler 6). In other words, to Butler, gender is theorized as radically independent from sex. However, Tim Dean’s distinction is the more applicable to Queer Theory, for that he searches for the distinct aspect of sexuality and desire. To Dean, “the term sexuality is regularly understood to involve questions not only of desire but also of identity, so that the issue of one’s sexuality tends to be taken as referring not only to the putative gender of one’s object-choice but also to one’s own gender identity, one’s masculinity or femininity.” (Dean 9). In other words, desire is directly related to one’s sexual identification. What he means by this is that the categories fail to represent homosexuals as a group with its own independent identity. This definition is more applicable to Queer Theory since one may express one’s own masculinity and desire a man, or one may express one’s femininity and desire a woman.
A binary system of sexuality, namely ‘male’ or ‘female’ desire, proved to be insufficient for the purposes of Queer Theory. In order to understand this, Butler explains the heterosexualization of desire. This term came about as a result of the cultural matrix through which gender was tied to ‘identities’ that could not ‘exist’. In these identities, gender does not follow from sex and also those practices of desire that do not follow from either sex or gender (Butler 17). Butler and Dean somehow agree that homosexual desire does not fits within the limits of a binary system of identity- namely ‘male’ or ‘female’- and that this system fails to give them a place in society. Queer Theory’s role to unite the gay community is further intensified as the Civil Right Movement emerged on the 1960's and also after the Stonewall Inn riots. These events helped capture, and brought together, the frustrations of the gay community giving them a common voice as it did for other minorities at the time. Similarly, Tim Dean defines Queer theory as a theory which: “views with postmodern skepticism the minoritizing conception of sexuality that undergirds gay liberation and women’s liberation” (Dean 10). This view emphasizes the newness of the theory and how it emerged within an specific point in history, the Civil Rights Movement. An event also marks the rise of gay liberation, the Stonewall Inn riots of 1969. This events are intrinsically important in that together, they helped to create a common identity for gay people.
However, not everyone in the society accepts homosexuality and it is very difficult to detach it from its taboos. Some terms are also important to understand the repression gay people suffer as a result of their isolation from the main stream. Firstly, ‘homophobia’ is described as the institutionalized discrimination of gay people inscribed in the culture and the laws. Secondly,‘internalized homophobia’ refers to the self-hatred some gay people inflict upon their own selves as a result of heterosexual America. This type of repression, could be the harshest since it is the own subjects self-struggle to fit into the main-stream to be better liked by the common. Lastly, ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ refers to the enormous pressure to be heterosexual placed upon the gay subject by society (Tyson 320).
Similarly, Butler explains that the binary restriction serves as an aim of the compulsory heterosexuality and that occasionally, the overthrow of the same leads to true humanism of “the person” (Butler 19). Butler also explains that “the institution of a compulsory
and naturalized heterosexuality requires and regulates gender as a binary relation in which the masculine term is differentiated from a feminine term, and this differentiation is accomplished through the practices of heterosexual desire” (Butler 23). The laws of normalcy are furthermore instated through the last statement. The system is hereafter distinguished as binary- namely ‘male’ or ‘female’ desire- which at the same time, can not be overlapped.
Additionally, the mass media are also responsible for homophobia because they favor a binary system. For this reason, the institutionalization of Queer theory came about to create an identity for gay people around the world and somehow show that they are not alone, nor abnormal because of their sexual desire. Queer theory emerged during the midst of feminism, gay liberation and the AIDS epidemic (Dean 10). During these times, it was specially important for gay people to unite and fight for their rights to express themselves. The AIDS epidemic and how it (at first) impacted the gay community with greater severity, this factors contribute to the stigma that the gay subject carries as a perverse and sexually deviant individual. The media and society are responsible for this negative image inflicted upon the gay community which eventually led to an institutionalized discrimination.
Tim Dean explains the Queer Critique of Normativity even further. He does so by defining the extent of ‘queer’ as opposed not merely to ‘straight’ but to ‘normal’ as well. Also, he argues that the force of queerness stem from the resistance of being normal as such. In other words, the gay subject does not generally aims to form part of the main-stream. They do not want to fit in. Specially within the American standpoint. Dean explains, through the theories of Jacques Lacan, that the gay subject is going directly against the American ideals of individualism, in particular to the expression of normalizing ethos “adaptation to reality”. Dean concludes that reality itself is imaginary, in Lacanian terms.
Normativity in relation to homosexual desire is another topic that manages to deepen homophobia in society. Moreover, Lacan’s response to normativity (as it is represented by Dean’s text) is not merely to produce alternative imaginaries, but to resist adaptation to the real (Dean 18). By being different, they can conglomerate and form a new category which does not overlaps gender, race, ethnicity, etc. Their goal through Queer Theory is to institutionalize a new gender which is neither male nor female. What the gay community is searching for is better described by the following statement: “there is no gender identity behind the expression of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions”that are said it be its results” (Butler 25). What is meant by this statement, is that the means are not important, the results are the one that matter upon the expression of desire. If the person manages to express his or her desires, he or she achieved to ultimate goal.
Commonly in the media, homosexuality and perversion tend to go together despite the false nature of this assumption. Dean further explores this issue through analyzing Lacanian theory. Homosexuality is rarely aligned with perversion. In other words, Lacan aims to differentiate this perversion commonly associated with the gay subject by conceptualizing perversion in terms of an unconscious structure of desire. To emphasize this last concept, Lacan uses Sade as his main representation of perverse manifestation, one that is not qualified as homosexual (Dean 22). However, despite of Lacan’s attempts, the misconception linking perversion to homosexuality persists. In part, the mass media are responsible for this. Accordingly, this view further strengthen institutionalized homophobia and to use gay people as scapegoats to many of the problems of society.
In conclusion, Queer Theory has proved to be useful upon taking some mystery off the topic. Also, it is helping to allow the homosexual community to be better understood and to create a sense of community to help the community to deal with homophobia and discrimination from the mainstream. If the reader can grasp the importance that Queer Theory has upon creating the basis for queer thinking and to create a path to tolerance of the homosexual community throughout the world, then the reader can also grasp that tolerance is attainable if homophobia is absent from the mass media and the society as a whole. However, the reader may never know if the effects of homophobia are temporary upon the subject, or if they are only present while the subject decides to embrace his desire as a homosexual subject. Other queer theorists may have studied the exact effects the internalized homophobia has upon the subject and how these may affect him/her socially. Also, the role of the mass media in the isolation of the gay community could be further explored.
“I devour every amorous system with my gaze and in it discern the place which would be mine if I were a part of the system,” Roland Barthes.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Dean, Tim. Beyond Sexuality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. Pgs 215-268.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: a user-friendly guide. New York: Garland Pub., 1999.
People who have read Their Eyes were Watching God since the 1970s commonly recognize that the text is a canonical work, but do not realize the role of feminism in African-American literature. It is not clear the resistant role, internally in Their Eyes were Watching God, externally in its perception, that feminism played. The text demonstrates tension between iconoclastic protagonist and the perceived knowledge of diagetic setting. On the other hand, the novels reception shows tension in the real world from the 1940s to the present in the following ways: racial hierarchy, peer leveling, sexual repression, intellectual fear, and anachronistic critique.
In the 1930’s many women, especially African-American women had much to say, but with no power to say it. They had feelings, thoughts, and suggestions of their own, but due to of antifeminist and Jim Crow laws, their voices and attitudes were disregarded. Because of their sex and race, African-American women suffered in their daily lives. As a result of their race, they were viewed as lower than white men and women, and other African-American men. For example, if an African-American woman was being abused by her husband, no attention would be paid to the matter. Whites felt like she was where she needed to be, and that if she was being assaulted, then she did something to deserve it. In effect of these circumstances, women were forced to search for self happiness because no one else was concerned about it. In the common mind, it is not thought of that feminism would play such a large role in literature. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God, she addressed issues that affected African-American women in the 1930s. She, like James Baldwin, gave a voice to those who did not have one. When the Jim Crow laws were in effect in the South, the right for African-American women to be heard was removed. As women were always seen to be of a lower status than men, African-American women and their opinions were ignored. Although the role of African-American women was strictly domestic, Their Eyes were Watching God broke that norm. If the influence of feminism can be understood in this novel, it would result in the greater knowledge of feminism and its affects. Also, the recognition of feminism can inspire a change in the way our patriarchal society is structured. Many African-American women had an influential role, but it was often hidden. At community meetings, women would make suggestions, but be ignored because the men at the meeting did not feel like their arguments and opinions were necessary. African-American women suffered from discrimination, sexism, and unsuccessful love. Because no one else was sincere about their happiness, women were forced to search for it on their own. African-American women had no strong expression in the 1930s and their judgment went unacknowledged, as they were constantly treated unjustly. With research and reading, it is clear how feminism and its components have played a role in African-American literature.
Lack of Racial Hierarchy
Janie was so comfortable around her Caucasian friends, that she did not notice she was different until she saw a photo. In order for someone to be comfortable with herself, she must see herself as equal to her peers. Janie, the main character in Their Eyes were Watching God, said “Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old." (Hurston 21) For six years, Janie grew up around white people. Her grandmother was a maid, and she played with the other white children whose parents worked. It was not until she saw a picture of herself that she realized that she was African-American. Adaptation does not only consist of a change of environment, but it also means being a part of it. Janie, who was raised around whites, had become accustomed to her peers. She, and they, saw her as equivalent because of this. However, this was only temporary. Janie would soon become an adult and realize how cruel and racist the world really was.
For someone to become fully adapted, it means she has to have security within herself and from her peers. When Janie was younger, her friends, who were white children, did not understand the concept of racism. Their innocence was still existent, and they only understood happiness. When a person is treated equally, she views herself as, racially, ethnically, and culturally equal. But in time, the lines of hate and parity and equality slowly diminish. In reality, whites did not feel that African-Americans were equal to themselves and they saw African-Americans as less than them in every way, no matter how financially stable or highly intelligent they may have been. African-Americans who were wealthy often could not integrate with their own kind because they were perceived as a different class and social status. Other African-Americans who were of a lower class were not fond of them, because they had something that they so much desired: wealth and power. This envy sparked an internal feud with those who wanted riches, and those who had it.
Peer Leveling
Class differences between African-Americans caused resentment and feelings of jealousy from lower class to the higher class. In the early 1930s, it was not rare for African-Americans and whites to dislike one another. And it certainly was not uncommon for those of the same race to despise one of their own. Referring to one African-American man who doubted another, a member of the town said, “Us colored folks is too envious of one nother. Us talks about de white man keepin us down! [...] Us keeps ourselves down." (Hurston 63) When Janie left town to marry Joe Starks, they moved to a smaller town called Eatonville. There, Starks planned to open a post office. When he told the other men in town about his plan to buy the land, they ridiculed him. While Jim Crow laws in the South existed, it would have been thought that there was not any adversary between members of the same race. However, that was not the case. Not only did it make it hard for African-Americans because whites were demeaning them, but it was more difficult because African-Americans did it to each other. The feelings of remorse caused African-Americans to lash out in rages of jealousy.
Jim Crow laws were intended to oppress African-Americans and keep them in a position of pessimism, but when they were eradicated, African-American women found their own sense of individuality. The laws’ main intention was to discriminate against any race that was not white. When the Jim Crow laws were broken and discontinued a new way of life was created. When African-Americans freed themselves of oppression, it gave a new light to African-American men and women. Women saw it unfair and absurd to remain in a group who still demeaned them. There were many African-American women who were treated with inequality not only by society, but domestically as well. Women were not appreciated in the home. They were taken for granted, and their views and opinions were dismissed when making decision about their selves.
Sexual Oppression
Their Eyes were Watching God helped to better the perception of African-American women from sexual objects to actualized human beings. Because of the disapproving conception of African-American women, they were only, if ever, seen as sexual entities. They had no rights in the home, or in sexual expeditions. Cheryl Wall, in Their Eyes were Watching God: A Casebook said “The novel was written in a cultural context of multiple sanctions against any representation of black female sexuality.” (Wall 137) During the time that the novel was written, African-American women were seen as housewives, maids, labor workers, and caretakers. Their sole purpose was to provide a service for others, who usually consisted of wealthy white people. African-American women were not expected to have sexuality or sexual needs. Culture and society has had a substantial influence on American writing. From the speech, and the language that is used, to the thought process. But it can be said that African-American writing has made a bigger impact on society. Where it was once tolerable to be, think, and act a certain way, it is now accepted. African-American writing has liberated the minds of the oblivious to understand that there is more to life than what meets the eye.
If oppression is the domination of one over another, then a cause of this domination can be a result of fear of a takeover by the other. It is possible that one remains oppressed because of fear of leaving what they know, or fear of criticism from others for defying traditional norms. For some, liberation is the only escape from oppression. In effect, they gain knowledge about a subject or a valuable article and use that knowledge to gain power, wealth, intelligence, and ultimate success. Along with those tools of life, comes fear. Not fear from a person, but fear of a person. When a certain level of power and knowledge are obtained, respect is given to the one who holds it, for if ever disrespected, they would be condemned for such an act.
Intellectual Fear
If a man had intelligence and wealth, he would be more feared than a man with physical strength. A main element of fear is the anxiety about something great and unknown. Some fear the physical aspects of others, while many fear the mental aspects. “There was something about Joe Starks that cowed the town. It was not because of his physical feat. [...] It was because he was more literate than the rest." (Hurston 75) Joe Starks was the second husband of Janie in Their Eyes were Watching God. Although he was not a man of a much built stature, he was intelligent; and that in itself was a great threat to others. Back in the 1930s when African-Americans were seen as ignorant, it was sporadic to cross and educated African-American man. Many African-American men in the society were muscular, with ample height and weight, so that was their only way of intimidation. But when an African-American man, an educated, intelligent, wealthy African-American man came along, he posed to be a bigger threat to others because of his brain power. He was such a major threat because while the other men may have had physical strength, they knew it could never get them further than mental strength would. Being smart was the key to acquiring wealth. Joe Starks represents an anti-intellectual strain in the Jim Crow South.
Knowledge can be a threat to others, but it can also be a threat to the person who possesses it. Hurston was exposed to the cruel world of being an African-American woman in the South. There were many writers who had seen and experienced the same, if not worse, trials of life, but it was she who took the stand and wrote about it in her books. Their Eyes were Watching God furthered its expectations. It addressed some of the most controversial issues of its time that no one else had the courage to address. The most significant topics included racism, feminism, discrimination, and Jim Crow laws of the South. What other writers and authors lacked in literature, the novel compensated for. For example, many novels talked about fantasy life, and girls dreaming of becoming royalty. The setting was in the suburbs and parents were employed, and the children were healthy. Their Eyes were Watching God spoke about reality. It showed the life of a woman who lived in poverty, was never internally happy, and who had multiple marriages, all of which ended. Hurston did not care about the criticism from others, because she was writing about the realities and what was really occurring in her life.
Anachronistic Criticism
The stylistics that Hurston used was criticized for the misrepresentation of African-Americans. She wrote a literal transcription of how language was actually spoken in that period. Too often, writers from the 1930s concealed the reality of what was happening in everyday life. In New Essays on Their Eyes were Watching God, Michael Awkward notes “This is a confrontation of class [dialect] that signifies the division that the writer as an intellectual has to recognize and bridge in the process of representing the people.” (Awkward 78) Their Eyes were Watching God was criticized for the African-American dialect that was used. Some said that the language was humiliating to other African-Americans and females everywhere. The actions and behaviors that people perform reflect on the greater species of their kind. So when the Hurston used a particular parlance in the novel, she was heavily disparaged for it. Many said that the novel contributed to the ignorant views of African-Americans by the language that the characters spoke in. In actuality, the book made no contribution to the ignorance of African-Americans. If anything, it helped others understand how life was really lived by the lower class, and the novel sparked a fuse to change it. If African-Americans spoke in proper English, then the dialect would have been written that way. But the truth is that African-Americans did, and still do speak in broken down English. The novel just opened up the minds and ears of the rest of society to see it.
Hurston still receives criticism from her literary works, not only in Their Eyes were Watching God, but in other books and novels that she has done. Some of the criticism is constructive, while others may have bee loutish. The problem lies in the lives of authors who have not experienced a hard life. If someone writes a novel about living in poverty, and a wealthy woman reads the work, she will not completely understand what is being read due to the lack of comparability.
Misogynistic
Richard Wright harshly criticized Their Eyes were Watching God because his views on writing were not ideologically similar to hers. And he seems to have not realized her feminist project. There have been many critiques about Their Eyes were Watching God. However, some writers criticize harder than others because they do not understand the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of a struggling African-American woman. In a critique of the novel, Wright states "The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, and no thought." (Wright 52) Wright commented on the novel when speaking of the nonexistent African-American female experience that it lacked. He claims it has no “depth”. Fr Wright, it may have been unseen to his mind, the being of a message, a thought, and a theme. Janie is a poor African-American woman who has lived three lives. She was forced into her first marriage, ran away with her second husband, and married a young gambler after becoming a widow, only to be forced to kill him in order to save her life. Then, she had to relocate to her previous town, and listen to others gossip about her and her life decision. With marrying different men, she was never really happy until she married her last husband. The point is that this woman had spent her life trying to find self happiness, and when she did, she had to destroy it. But no matter what, she always manages to recuperate. Strength is a very eminent trait that African-American women are known for.
In the 1930s in the South, African-American women had no strong sense of expression. There were many talented women who could not express themselves due to the restrictions if Jim Crow laws and antifeminism. Hurston was a part of group of subordinate women, yet she did not succumb to norms and standards, and she expressed how other African-American women in the South felt. If it can be understood how and to what extent feminism played a role in this novel, it would cause the higher intelligence of the feminism and its effects. It would also impel a change to be made in the structure of our patriarchal society. Although it is known how social events from the 1930s have affected African-American literature, it can never be understood how woman of all races contributed to the change in the system. A reader might research how feminism has changed from the 1930s to the present, and how it has affected not only women, but men. They could study the difference in power and liberation from the 1930’s to the resent in another text.
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