We were in a Virtual world where the only taboo was real life. But in a true Virtual world I could have gently picked up Elgin and dropped him for ever from the frame. (p.98)
They are in Oxford, away from Elgin. Louise is smiling, calm but she has something undercover. She keeps her secret as if she is a war-time agent. The secret makes Oxford a virtual world. Virtual world is so real, but is not real. The narrator’s prospect and anticipation are wedging into the very thin line crossing real world and virtual world. The narrator is foreseeing that she will go back to her shell, but at the same time wishing she stays.
Halberstam and Freeman’s arguments about time and space of normativity and the queer provide elaborate view in the virtual world, and reveals the characters’ suffocating struggle. Oxford is not just a place where hope and forecast, pretense and sincerity are crossing on an individual level. Rather, it is a place where the narrator and Louise are struggling against overwhelming power of normativity, which is Elgin, marriage, respectful social status and stable economic condition.
They tried to get away from the norm, but their escape may vanish just like their temporary shelter, the rented room. Criticism against them will be as adverse as the scorching heat and distracting noises outside. They may doubt themselves at last, as the narrator sees the illusion of Elgin. You may be some place out of the real world, but the normativity persists so strongly in everywhere that you can never be out of the real world and only realize that you were in the virtual world.
However, these instability and vulnerability of their escape do not undermine its value. As what Halbertstam said, the crisis of instability is also an opportunity to create alternative modes of life. The moment Louise decided to leave Elgin, she made her real world and the virtual world reversed, as ‘my love for you makes any other life a lie’.
“We were in a Virtual world where the only taboo was real life”
I think that sums up well the idea of queer time – an idea of time different from what society has inculcated us, that is with no socially constructed markers (job, marriage, children, etc.). I like how you describe the bubble in which the narrator and Louise live but in which they suffocate at the same time. Indeed, as you mention, they do not belong to the norm and are subjected to constant criticism.
When I came across queer time in Halberstam perspective, I analyzed it in a way to further understand how time itself has evolve. In the situation with Louise, Elgin, and the narrator, we witness the transformation of marriage overtime. How time itself has changed the view of marriage in many ways. We can portray marriage through different genders, beliefs, and even the idea of divorce and change. The norms constructed under the institution of marriage have changed as well. I believe both Winterson and Halberstam give us a view on how norms of different institutions have changed overtime due to queer time and the idea of being queer.
I like the way that you’re thinking about the virtual world that the narrator refers to as an example of queer space, and I think you made your point really well by emphasizing that the virtual world of Oxford offers the couple an escape from the normative pressures that Elgin represents. Your post connects nicely with the post that discusses The Wizard of Oz; specifically, I think that both posts are thinking through what it means to exist in queer time/space that’s somewhat temporary. While you point out that Louise makes the virtual world a reality when she decides to leave Elgin, I’m also wondering whether the narrator’s discovery of Louise’s cancer later in the narrative moves the couple into a different type of queer space.