#radclyffehall

        Throughout The Well of Loneliness, animals have repeatedly and importantly served a symbolic purpose, often revealing intimate qualities of the different characters in the novel through the descriptions of how each person treats them and how they respond and behave in turn. In Chapter 42, the juxtaposition of the stoic Raftery with David, Mary’s found beloved dog, makes it appear as if Raftery is serving to represent Stephen’s personality while David symbolically conveys Mary’s nature. David continues to come up throughout the book, however this explicit comparison and first in-depth description of his temperament and constitution best displays my point here. Raftery’s language, “the language of many small sounds and small movements,” is much alike to Stephen’s austere, reserved, intentional, and deliberate code of conduct; even on a more literal level, Stephen is a highly educated writer and thus specific and gifted with her language and words (442). Mary, on the other hand, lacks this sort of education the way David “lacked the language that Raftery had known,” however Mary and David are both best described as “unrestrainedly loving” (442). The way Mary seeks to please Stephen and craves her love and affection while loving her wholeheartedly, unconditionally, and beyond intensely in return is nearly identical to the way in which David feels about Mary— in fact, “He nearly broke his own heart between love and the deep gratitude which he felt for Mary” (442). Mary also seems to experience such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for Stephen, and when one of the two women is hurting, the other is just as pained to know it. Above all else, what Mary so selflessly gives Stephen is love and loyalty and companionship, the same as a dog famously does for their owner. Raftery, ever cool and composed on the outside, ever stable and consoling to Stephen, indeed provided Stephen with what Stephen provides for Mary while also embodying many of her personality traits. Riding Raftery was joyous and comforting for Stephen; traveling and being with Stephen makes Mary feel safe, happy, and at home. To again be more technical, Raftery is even from England like Stephen while David is Welsh like Mary. Like an unspoken metaphor then, David and Raftery tell a great deal about the innate nature and disposition of Mary and Stephen. The question is, is there a greater purpose for this animal symbolism? Does the author use it to flesh out characters in a creative and almost subconscious way, or does the inclusion of animals here serve another purpose? I personally wonder if it functions as commentary on the theme of nature versus nurture— a critical component of this novel seeing as how Stephen’s queerness is consistently framed as inborn and the work of God— as the author seems to suggest the existence of an essential and innate nature, an inborn goodness or badness that is often associated with animals given their primal genuineness and inability to keep up a façade.

Throughout The Well of Loneliness thus far, most of the outward displays of disapproval and disgust toward Stephen have revolved around her supposed gender more than her assumed sexuality, granted a few exceptions. Interestingly, when Stephen’s sexuality is directly attacked by Anna following her reception of Ralph’s letter, Stephen abandons her normal reserve and defends her love to her mother, saying “It was good, good, good…” (263). What Stephen repeatedly struggles to reconcile herself, however, is her body’s betrayal of binary gender norms, both in appearance and behavior; time and time again, Stephen refers to herself as an abomination, a wretched and shameful creature of sorts given her inability to align fully with either gender category. Moreover, she seems to despise Brockett for his own deviations from gender expectations— detesting his “soft white hands,” his “foolish gestures,” and his “effeminate timbre that Stephen always hated,” her thoughts and reactions function as commentary on the importance placed on gender scripts above all else in the social world (319). Additionally, her annoyance shows that not all queer individuals are comfortable with their personal queerness or others’ queerness either, most likely due to the internalization of phobic rhetorics that we pick up on through early socialization. The reason I focus on this theme of gender outweighing sexuality in social significance is because deviating from gender norms still engenders a more impassioned response of repulsion among conservative factions today than sexuality ever has. The progress made in gay rights legislation for example, as compared with the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, speaks volumes about the western world’s obsession with a gender binary that gets visibly reified through daily apparel, body mannerisms, makeup and accessories, speaking habits, and beyond. Even in the 1920s, apparently, and even for Stephen herself, the obvious violation of gender scripts elicits disproportionate negativity and outrage despite the fact that sexuality has more to do with action than mere physical appearance and presentation. Perhaps this is because gender performance is publicly visible in a way that sexuality is not, or perhaps there is a deeper reason for humans’ vehement adherence to two gender categories more so than to heterosexual relations. Stephen claims her love for Angela Crossby was as pure as Anna’s love for her father— maybe it is society’s longstanding obsession with the romanticized ideal of true love existing naturally, spiritually, and uncontrollably between two people that allows for more tolerance, or at the very least, the turning of a blind eye. Even as a young girl, Stephen’s infatuation with Collins is ignored for the most part while her affinity for dressing as Nelson is regarded as unusually bizarre behavior for a little girl. As she ages, Stephen’s disinterest in men is dismissed as consequence of her commitment to sport and more solitary endeavors, yet her decision to wear suits and ties upsets most who come into contact with her. This focus on nature and what is natural is a critical theme throughout the book, and its differential treatment of gender and sexuality poses interesting questions about today’s attitudes toward gender and sexuality. For instance, why and how are “lipstick lesbians” treated differently than “butch lesbians”? How and why is love attraction framed as more innately natural to a person’s disposition than knowledge of one’s self-identity? Is this a mere matter of the public versus the private, or is there more going on here? How, if at all, have gender and sexuality ideologies changed over time?