On The Unstated Lesbianism: A Study Of My Antonia From The Perspective Of Queer Theory

Written in the early20thcentury, one of Willa Cather’s favorite novels—MyAntonia is still fascinating to literary critics. They interpret it through variousperspectives, namely feminism, new criticism, psychoanalysis, culture studies and soon. Strange omissions, inconsistent structure and seemingly irrelevant episodes occurso frequently in the text. Some of them, mainly feminists have already noticed that theambiguous narration in the novel has something to do with Cather’s own “abnormal”sexuality orientation which Cather neither affirmatively claims nor does sheapparently portray in her works. This thesis adopts queer theory, and means to analyzethe ambiguities and inconsistencies in the text, which is expected to reveal the fact thatheterosexual relations and heterosexual charms are unfavorably treated in the novel;and the main characters gender identities are ambivalent. Through the analysis above,the thesis intends to imply that the reason behind Cather’s abnormal presentation ofheterosexuality is her lesbianism. Cather does not write lesbianism overtly, but hernegative attitude towards heterosexual relationship is presented in the novel. Relatingto Cather’ biography, this thesis intends to draw the conclusion that Cather, as alesbian writer being raised and living in20thcentury, has much, both interior andexterior, to reconcile with society and her lesbianism. The presentation of sexuality inMy Antonia reveals the fact that Cather has to make a compromise between herlesbianism and the acceptance of the general public.