Dolls to Slide in Grooves: Performances in Paradoxical Space in Sarah Waters?Fingersmith

Postgraduate English: A Journal and Forum for Postgraduates in English (UK)

Akira Suwa

关键词: Sarah Waters;    Fingersmith;    Neo-Victorianism;    Space;    Domestic Confinement, Performance, Heteronormativity, Utopia;   

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: University of Durham

【 摘 要 】

In her neo-Victorian novelFingersmith(2002), Sarah Waters sets up the manor house as a place where women have to perform their domestic roles. As one character compares those who live in the house to dolls which slides mechanically in the grooves, the inside of the house is regarded as a space which restrains women physical and psychological freedom. Although at first the two heroines, Sue and Maud, perform the roles given to them, gradually their pre-determined actions are overtaken by their spontaneous expression of homosexual feelings towards each other. Maud bedroom, which becomes the place for their first sexual union, then serves to signify their rebellion against heteropatriarchal codes. Also, the place where they are reunited ?the library which was symbolic of patriarchal authority but is transformed into Maud workspace for her pornographic literature ?is what Gillian Rose calls aradoxical space? As it is a space which is still positioned within the boundary of patriarchy and at the same time refuses to be consumed completely in the system, the library space can undermine heteronormativity, holding potential for Sue and Maud queer utopia. The presence of lesbians within heterosexist society, not their escape from it, can undercut the rigidity of gender and sexuality.

【 授权许可】

CC BY