{"id":460,"date":"2015-02-18T16:19:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T21:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=460"},"modified":"2015-02-18T16:19:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T21:19:38","slug":"anti-happy-endings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2015\/02\/18\/anti-happy-endings\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Happy Endings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The narrator in Written on the Body<\/span> tries very hard, but does not always succeed in embodying a queer, abstract, script-less relationship. Throughout the novel we see references to the clich\u00e9\u2019s of love and marriage. The narrator mocks this idea of love as prescribed with a set path that can be followed to a happy and blissful end. However, the narrator is not always successful in letting go, or changing the patterns of past relationships. However, the very last line suggests to me that the narrator has finally found a way out of clich\u00e9\u2019s at last and into queer time. \u201cI don\u2019t know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields\u201d (190). This line implies queer relationships and queer time. If we see the narrators desire through the book for the \u2018forever\u2019 relationship as the future that heteronormative time dangles in front of us than this line becomes a shift into queer time. X says \u201chere we are\u201d implying the now, the present-ness, the simply \u2018being\u2019 that queer time emphasizes. \u201cThe constantly diminishing future creates a new emphasis on the here, the present, the now\u201d (2) says Judith Halberstam about queer time. The words \u201cloose\u201d and \u201copen\u201d also reference a queer time. A place without the structure and deadlines of heteronormativity is the field that the narrator is released into.<\/p>\n

However I find the most redemption for the narrator comes from \u201cI don\u2019t know if this is a happy ending\u201d. That is the essential difference between a prescribed heteronormative relationship, and a queer undefined relationship. When we have your two story house in the suburbs with your happy-hetero family and yappy dog, you know<\/em> it\u2019s your happy ending. The whole point is that when you get to \u2018perfect life\u2019 you recognize it; you can look back on all your hard work and say that you made it. However, the narrator does not describe that moment of clarity, of feeling like X got everything X wanted. Instead the narrator lives in the unknown, in the potential of happy ending. In the books last line it denies the reader the \u2018and then they lived happily ever after\u2019 and in doing so queers the books. This is not a love story. Nothing about it functions as expected, even the \u2018happy ending\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The narrator in Written on the Body tries very hard, but does not always succeed in embodying a queer, abstract, script-less relationship. Throughout the novel we see references to the clich\u00e9\u2019s of love and marriage. The narrator mocks this idea of love as prescribed with a set path that can be followed to a happy … Continue reading Anti-Happy Endings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2598,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93618],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}