| What are the stories that our culture has told, and continues to tell, about the lesbian? And what purpose do these stories serve? These are the questions guiding my dissertation, which examines how the lesbian has been imagined and represented in twentieth-century American literature and culture. Because we live in a culture that is structured by and therefore caters to heterosexuality and its concomitant desires-what I call “the culture of the straight mind”—I argue that its narratives and images of “deviance” must always be understood in relation to those desires. By analyzing a range of cultural texts—canonical and pulp fiction, sociological and psychoanalytic studies, magazine and newspaper articles, films and television images—I demonstrate how the lesbian, in her various configurations, functions as the figure through whom heterosexuality, “womanhood” and “manhood,” and femininity affirm and reinforce their status as “natural” and “normal.”; The first two chapters identify narrative genres in which the lesbian appears frequently across the twentieth century. Chapter one examines the figure of the “prison lesbian” in the “women-in-prison” narrative, analyzing how this lesbian—contained as she is behind prison walls—provides straight audiences with the ideal opportunity to experiment with “deviance.” Chapter two explores the narrative of the erotic triangle, in which the lesbian competes with a man for the love of a woman. The “triangular lesbian” simultaneously threatens and fortifies heterosexuality, as she incites her companions to prove their “manhood” and “womanhood.” The second section of the dissertation focuses on representations of lesbianism in specific historical moments. Chapter three analyzes the mainstream visibility of the lesbian in the 1970s, at the height of the Women's Liberation Movement. This visibility is contingent upon her ability to reassure and reinforce heterosexuality, imperiled as it was by the “sexual politics” of the era. Chapter four investigates lesbian visibility in the 1990s—the decade of “lesbian chic”—analyzing how the lesbian's presence on mainstream landscapes is dependent on her femininity and (hetero)sexual appeal. As a whole, this dissertation reveals how our culture's stories of lesbianism speak to the desires, anxieties, and fantasies of the straight mind. |
