Tag: Warner

Jacqueline and ‘Normal’

“I wanted the clichés, the armchair. I wanted the broad road and twenty-twenty vision. What’s wrong with that? It’s called growing up. Maybe most people gloss their comforts with a patina of romance but it soon wears off. They’re in it for the long haul; the expanding waistline and the little semi in the suburbs. What’s wrong with that? Late-night TV and snoring side by side into the millennium. Till death us do part. Anniversary darling? What’s wrong with that?” (Winterson, 26)

This passage comes at a point in Winterson’s text where the narrator has just met Jacqueline and is trying to decide whether a relationship with her is what she wants and/or needs. Jacqueline is different from anyone the narrator has previously been with: “She worked nine to five Monday to Friday, drove a Mini and got her reading from book clubs. She exhibited no fetishes, foibles, freak-outs or fuck-ups. Above all she was single and she had always been single. No children and no husband” (26). Jacqueline is strikingly normal and mundane, and as the narrator considers their past relationships, they find themself wanting to test the waters of normalcy. They are thinking in circles, considering what they want, what they need, what they should want, and how being with Jacqueline will be different. Deep down, however, they know a relationship with her will never be fulfilling. The repeated question “what’s wrong with that?” clues the reader in to the narrator’s anxieties around long-term commitment and their fear of an unsatisfying relationship, and shows that they are questioning whether they can really be happy with Jacqueline. The narrator seems to be trying to convince themselves that “growing up” and settling into a comfortable, clichéd relationship isn’t actually that bad; however, the way they imagine that relationship reveals a different story, as they describe a loss of romance, growing old with their partner, and having nothing more exciting than late-night TV and anniversaries to look forward to. The relationship becomes stagnant, unchanging, and boring. “What’s wrong with that?” the narrator asks themself. Nothing, except that a stagnant, boring relationship is at odds with what they really want. 

When considering this passage alongside ideas of ‘normal’ and ‘queerness’ as imagined by Warner and Rubin, it becomes apparent that the narrator is trying to reconcile their queerness with the desire to conform to given norms. Though the narrator’s gender and sexuality are never revealed, they fit into several categories in the “outer limits” or “bad/abnormal/unnatural” section of Rubin’s sexual hierarchy. They are unmarried, promiscuous, and their sex life is focused on pleasure rather than procreation; regardless of their gender, they have had relationships with both men and women, and thus can also fit into the category of homosexuality. Jaqueline, on the other hand, seems to fall into more of the “good/normal/natural” categories, though not entirely. Her sexuality is rather complex, as she is introduced as “the mistress of one of [the narrator’s friends] the confidante of both… She traded sex and sympathy for £50 to tide her over the weekend and a square meal on Sunday” (25). She therefore fits the “commercial” and (potentially) “sadomasochistic” categories in Rubin’s sexual hierarchy. Yet the narrator believes a relationship with her will be calm, clichéd, and normal, to the point of boredom. There is no passion between the two of them, and once together, their sex life becomes stagnant (28); it doesn’t seem too much to assume, considering the boredom and lack of romance, that it is private and vanilla as well. The narrator wants to try this calm, mundane kind of relationship with Jacqueline, seeing it and her as a welcome respite from the affairs they have had in the past. The problem is, the narrator is lying to themself on some level. They insist that they want “the clichés, the armchair,” when in reality, they will eventually become bored and frustrated with Jacqueline and her mundanity and leave her, choosing Louise and queerness over Jacqueline and normalcy.

Precision

A precise emotion seeks a precise expression.  If what I feel is not precise then should I call it love?” (Winterson, 10)

This passage immediately drew me in, despite its brevity, because of the simple eloquence of its phrasing.  In a mere two sentences, the narrator turns the widely accepted idea of ‘love’ on its head, questioning how we define our feelings and what ‘love’ actually means.  The narrator poses an almost scientific theory, in the vein of Newton’s third law of motion (every action must have an equal and opposite reaction,) essentially stating that every precise emotion must be expressed through equal precision.  This opposition is itself then juxtaposed with the concept that if an emotion is not precise, it may not be expressed precisely.  In fact, the word “precise” is repeated three times, drawing special focus to the concept of precision and inviting the reader to question if it is possible define an emotion precisely in the first place. We all think we know what ‘love’ is, but if we were to ask everyone who is in ‘love’ to define what ‘love’ is, it is unlikely that we would end up with two identical definitions.  By that logic, if those feelings of affection most of us seem to experience are imprecise and individual-specific, should we even be allowed to define them as ‘love’?

I believe that Sedgwick’s idea of queer, “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances, and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning,” can help us cope with this issue (8).  Humans are pattern-seeking animals and therefore seek definitions, particularly for those things that scare or confuse us, such as imprecise emotions.  Labels and clichés make us feel safe, assuring us that we are not the only ones experiencing the perplexing emotions that we do when we say, fall in ‘love.’ However, perhaps we overuse these clichés, forcing ourselves to shave down our emotions into precise pegs that easily fit in the holes we’ve made for them.  We’ve streamlined ‘love,’ cutting out any room for the “…gaps, overlaps, dissonances…” that Sedgwick speaks of by “embracing one identity or one set of tastes as though they were universally shared, or should be” as Warner argues (Sedgwick, 8)(Warner, 1).  As a result, we invite shame into the equation and push it on those whose idea of ‘love’ is more of a square peg than a round one.  Perhaps if we were to utilize Sedgwick’s idea of queer as a precise expression of imprecise emotions, we would be more at ease (and therefore hopefully less condemnatory) with emotions that don’t identically match our own.