Author: nilhsa

In most young adult fiction, we see the recurring pattern of a main character overcoming some sort of coming of age obstacle. In both Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan and Luna by Julie Anne Peters, the coming of age struggle exists though instead of focusing on the struggle of the narrator, we are exposed to the struggle of the person closest to them. Published within a year of each other, both novels possess major LGBTQ characters, a little love story and desire for a sense of belonging. These two stories are obviously similar for their ability to fit into their genre.
A surprising difference between these two texts are the realities they are set in. In Boy Meets Boy, is set in a society that is utopian to when it was written. It shows the opposite of heteronormativity by showing very little negativity and disapproval of the LGBTQ community. The acceptance in this community is clear when it becomes apparent to the reader that Paul never really “came out”, he simply liked boys and there were no further questions, taking the “coming out” out of what the reader expects to be a coming out story. There are no specific moments speaking of him being harassed for his sexuality, instead there is a transgender quarterback.
On the contrary, Luna is set in a household where gender norms are assumed and the gender spectrum is not widespread. In the very beginning of the book, Regan reveals about her Father, “He wasn’t too crazy about Mom’s job. Specifically, her elevating her own status from Wife and Mother to More Significant Other.” (Peters, 7). Though she says her Dad wasn’t being sexist, when their Mom says she will be home late too cook dinner, Regan is assigned the duty. She complains and when Liam offers to cook he is shut down by his father instantly, saying it is not his job (10).
These different settings are important to explore because Luna can be seen as the current reality. Some people have open minds, others closed by the hands of their upbringing and fear of the unknown. Boy Meets Boy can stand as a hopeful future, where sexuality can have such fluidity that people don’t assume and we stray from labeling.

The presence of camp culture in Angels in America is found within the play’s comedic structure while holding a theme of the AIDs epidemic. In Susan Sontag’s “Notes On “Camp”, she says, “The whole point of camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious”, giving the thought that it is easier to joke about the serious than it is to look it in the eyes and deal with it. With AIDs being a very serious tragedy in our country’s history, Angels in America brings a sort of lightheartedness to the subject, this balance of drama and comedy makes the play campy.

The play shows several examples of camp, one including the funeral of a major drag queen in New York City. Rather than a funeral, it was a celebration. HBO’s production of the play showed fellow people of the LGBTQ community, not mourning death, but singing along with the church choir to celebrate life. Belize also says, “He couldn’t be buried like a civilian. Trailing sequins and incense he came into the world, trailing sequins and incense he departed it. And good for him!” Taking death, a typically morbid topic and adding the joyful singing and sequins is camp because it makes a heartbreaking situation a little bit easier to swallow.

On the contrary, Prior resists camp in this specific scene. While exiting the funeral he says, “A great queen; big fucking deal. That ludicrous spectacle in there, just a parody of someone who really counted. We don’t; faggots, we’re just a bad dream the real world is having, and the real world’s waking up. And he’s dead”. Here Prior lets seriousness take over the topic of death, referring to gay people as the real world’s bad dream. Prior is being anti-camp because rather looking at the joy of the drag queen’s sparkly life, he looks at it as nothing more than the death of another person that the rest of the world does not care about. Prior’s anti-camipness makes the reader see the far end of the spectrum of an AIDs narrative, where people are dying and mourning their loved one’s deaths and there is no mention of the beauty of the life that they had. This play’s campiness allows a true tragedy to be brought to light, allowing the reader to see it as a story of life instead of a story of death.

Jeanette Winterson, young and naive grew up with teachings of the bible pumping through her veins. As her Mother taught her, their lives revolved around the Lord, everything that happens is of the Lord’s doing and the Lord was never wrong. Jeanette’s Mother made it a point to teach her daughter about the The Bible inside and out. Jeanette was trained to be a loyal member of the church but, what if this training clouded her judgement rather than helping her find her way to blissful salvation?
Jeanette has a wall built between her and reality. It is clear in the novel when the author states, “I learnt that it rains when clouds collide with a high building, like a steeple, or a cathedral; the impact punctures them, and everybody underneath gets wet. This was why, in the old days, when the only tall buildings were holy, people used to say cleanliness is next to godliness. The more godly your town, the more high buildings you’d have, and the more rain you’d get.” (Winterson 15)
It is obvious to anyone who has faith in the sciences that the occurrence of rain is far more complex than the collision of cloud and tall building. Though the idea that this is so is kind of cute in a fairytale sort of way, it is simply not so. As a young child, Jeanette is naive because she knows nothing about the world outside the church.
Though we haven’t reached the point in the story where Jeanette comes out, it can be assumed, with such a strict loyalty to the Lord, that revealing her sexuality was an incredibly difficult thing to do. In the novel, when discussing two unmarried women who ran a shop together, Jeanette heard her Mother say, “they dealt in unnatural passions” (7). The term “unnatural” has synonyms such as outrageous, bizarre and preposterous, creating a negative stigma around the word thus, creating a negative stigma around women loving women. Being taught that being lesbian is unnatural at a young age can certainly make it difficult to accept your sexuality.

Silence is far too common, used as a safety blanket to protect people from the vulnerability of voicing raw thoughts and ideas for others to hear. In this section of Adrienne Rich’s, “Twenty-One Love Poems”, she requests that people expose their thoughts. These thoughts have a purpose, and they should not be disregarded and left float into the abyss.  Rich refers to mind as the “pond where drowned things live”(147) where the “drowned things”(147) are our muted thoughts. People consistently have a filter turned on, preventing them from saying what they are thinking.  Intelligent beings capable of critical thinking and problem solving should not allow these ideas to fall into the dark.  When Rich says, “I want to see raised dripping and brought into the sun.”(147), she is suggesting forgetting the filter and spitting out genuine thoughts.  The word “dripping”(147) infers that the thoughts should not be revised. Rather than removing them from the water and drying them off with a towel, expose them to the world, saturated with authenticity.  These legitimate thoughts are what can trigger intriguing conversation, developing an opportunity for an unlimited flow of ideas.  Rich hopes people will allow their thoughts to come out though it will take time.  She writes, “It’s not my own face I see there, but other faces,/even your face at another age.”(147).  Children are less cautious with their words, less afraid to speak their minds likely because they are naive.  Possibly, “your face at another age”(147) is suggesting to return to the mental state of a child, asking four hundred questions a day without a second thought.  Also, “another age”(147) may be stating that the ability to vocalize ideas will come in time as some sort of futuristic evolution. Nevertheless, Adrienne Rich is encouraging people to eventually shine the light on their ideas, rather than hide them.