Literature

     Hall dedicates her book, The Well of Loneliness, to our third selves (Hall).  Referring to the third sex or inversion, the author believed that it is absolutely normal for ones gender role to be reversed (Souhami Zimmerman 275).  According to the theory of inversion, the entire person of an invert female is masculine.  Hence, it is only natural for such a female to be sexually attracted to other females.  Most sexologists have claimed that the cause of inversion is congenital (Zimmerman 275).  Hall believed in this claim (Souhami).  However, But, if nature seems to have played an essential role in creating inverts, there is reason to believe that nurture too plays an equally -- if not the most important -- role in the development of inverts.  After all, Stephen Mary Olivia Gertrude is a female, although her parents had imagined they would have a baby boy (Hall 6).  When the child is born, it is the Vicar who insists on adding Mary Olivia to her given name, that is, Stephen, which is a male name (Hall 7).  Clearly, Stephens parents appear all set to socialize their daughter as a male.  In fact, Stephens mother believes that her daughter reminds her of her husband (Hall 10).  With these attitudes and feelings, Stephens parents have made it only natural for their daughter to develop as an invert.  Indeed, Stephen is an invert and a homosexual for she has no reason to adopt an identity other than that of Stephens, that is, the identity of a male.

     According to Hall, The Well of Loneliness was written with three purposes in her mind To encourage inverts to face up to a hostile world in their true colors and this with dignity and courage to spur all classes of inverts to make good through hard work, faithful and loyal attachments and sober and useful living to bring normal men and women of good will to a fuller and more tolerant understanding of the inverted (Souhami).  So, even though doctors such as Clarence P. Oberndorf have maintained that homosexuality is a compulsive neurosis having nothing to do with biological deviations, Hall would like people to consider inversion as a normal condition (Rosario 69-70).  Hence, it is only natural for Stephen to have a crush on Collins (Hall 10-12).  Hall writes that Stephen began to be very inattentive at her lessons, sucking her pencil, staring out of the window, or what was far worse, not listening at all, except for Collins footsteps (Hall 12).  What is more, Stephen has a good heart, and would like to bear all of Collins pains (Hall 16).  She expresses to her father that she would like to become a male (Hall 19).  Her father, who makes Stephen feel as though she were a friend, even notices movements of Stephens body resembling the bodily movements of males (Hall 18-19).  However, Stephen is not reprimanded for making such movements (Hall 19).  Thus, the female invert has no reason to change her behavior to resemble females.   

     ORourke notes that Stephens father played the role of a mother for his daughter, and she had been socialized to develop an interest in male hobbies, such as riding (ORourke ix).  The father tells the mother that Stephen may never get married (ORourke ix).  As suggested before, the attitudes and feelings of parents toward their child must play a vital role in the development of inversion.  Moreover, for the reason that Stephens father played the role of a mother must have left no doubt in the young girls mind that it was normal to be an invert.  ORourke writes, Stephen Gordon is the perfect hero.  She is noble, accomplished, wealthy, self-sacrificing, honorable.  She has only one flaw  that she is a woman To be a heroine in life and fiction is something entirely different, something far from straightforward for Stephen Gordon (ORourke 1).  In other words, inversion comes naturally to Stephen.  Femininity, on the other hand, would take an effort on Stephens part to practice.  As Simone de Beauvoir states, One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman (Gammel 177).  Thus, femininity is a choice, also for those males who would like to practice homosexuality (Gammel 177).  Likewise, masculinity is a choice for Stephen.  She would say Do you think that I could be a man, supposing I thought very hard  or prayed, Father (Hall 19). 

     According to Sigmund Freud, all children are born bisexual, that is, essentially without gendered-object choice (Zimmerman 115).  He further stated that all people  are capable of making a homosexual object choice, and, indeed, most have at some point in their development, meaning that the distinction between normality and perversion is a matter of degree (Zimmerman 275).  For Freud, it is ones development in childhood that determines the degree of normality versus perversion as far as making homosexual choices is concerned (Zimmerman 275).  With this understanding, it must be reasserted that homosexuality and inversion are choices for Stephen, a female given the name of a male and largely socialized as a male.  As Stephen is satisfied with her choice, and femininity does not come naturally to her, it is unsurprising that The Well of Loneliness describes invert sexual pleasures in depth.  Armstrong writes

The Well is, in fact, deeply invested in articulating both invert identity and invert pleasures. It does so, however, in ways which rely on the novels particular and powerfully historicized articulations of human-animal relations. When such relations are read carefully alongside The Wells use of inversion theory, the novel opens up at several new levels, revealing radical articulations of identity and desire. Formulated through the conservative, gender-binary-driven collection of ideas called inversion theory, The Well mobilizes the weird logics of late-Victorian sexology to facilitate new narrative spaces for radical pleasures. The figure of the horse emerges as the pivotal agent for both the novels articulation of stable sexual identities and for its surprisingly radical multiplicity of erotic narrative strands.

     Two specific erotic strands run through the gloomy invert narrative of The Well, each of which is primarily articulated via the equine figure first, the horse enables the novels substantial autoerotic narrative, which concurrently establishes invert identity,  while creating a narrative of intense pleasure through the masturbatory joys of horse riding and second, The Wells engagement with inversion theorys interest in breeding and race splices the human-animal binary onto the mutually determined, hierarchized binaries of masculine-feminine and Anglo-Celtic. In particular, the Anglo-Celtic racial binary structures a human-animal romance plot where the Stephen-Raftery bond moves across both the novels project of articulating desire between women and inversion theorys concerns with race, breeding, and degeneration. These trajectories of masturbation and romanticized bestial relations reveal new textual erotics elusive pleasures -- caught in hierarchized yet radically eroticized identificatory systems -- enter the narrative system at the stable door.  (Armstrong 4-50)

     Stephen enjoys being an invert without having to dwell on Taylors description of her identity as pathological (Taylor).  After all, she has not only been socialized as a male but has also wished to be a male.  Stephen would be delighted to know that modern psychologists do not treat lesbianism as a disease (Zimmerman 276).  However, But, sexologists have not been able to find conclusive evidence that inversion is congenital either (Taylor).  Hence, for all intents and purposes, both inversion and homosexuality remain as choices for Stephen.  Even though the masculine and feminine are inverted in her mind, Stephen knows the value of invert pleasures, and has no intention to give up her identity as it is (Gammel 177).   

     Taylor writes that Stephen identifies with heterosexual males, and this is tied to the fact that her parents had wanted a male child and society tends to favor males.  Also,  according to the author
A first encounter with Stephen Gordon demonstrates how blatantly Hall directs the reader to construct the characters gender as masculine. From the most basic physical and textual cues, the characters masculine body and male name, to those which are only slightly more subtly deployed, such as her gentlemanly manners and deportment, virtually everything in the representation of Stephens gender invites the reader response Thats a man Time and again, attention is drawn to the fact that Stephen feels like a man, or certainly does not feel like a woman looks like a man, or certainly does not look like a woman wants to be a man, or certainly does not want to be a woman indeed,  would make a very good man, a far better man than a woman, in fact, to borrow a phrase from the critics, she would be the perfect gentleman  (Taylor).

     Stephen appears to have worked hard on herself to shape her identity as a mannish lesbian (Taylor).  She has sought the love of both her parents and society at large thus.  As her parents subconsciously went on wishing for her to be their male child, the girl incorporated masculinity to please them.  Perhaps Stephens mother was not really reminded of her husband as she considered her daughter.  It may have been a subconscious desire of her mother to see her daughter as a male.  Stephens father shared this desire, which is why the girl was given the name of a boy even before she was born (Hall 6-7). 

     Stephen must have subconsciously grasped this desire of her parents, which is the reason that why she developed as an invert  considering that childhood development shapes personality, according to the most eminent psychologists,  such as Freud.  There is plenty of evidence that socialization determines both femininity and masculinity.  Various religions and philosophies teach that males and females are exactly equal however, their physical differences in addition to societal teachings demand of them to perform different roles.  As an important example, around the world women are recognized as homemakers.  Traditionally,  they are considered responsible for cleaning up their houses, cooking for their husbands and children, and helping the latter with their school work.  They must ensure that their husbands and children have clothes that are washed.  Taking care of the elders in the house, such as the husbands parents, is another traditional duty of the female.  Husbands or males are typically considered the breadwinners for the family.  Although countless people have already spoken against inequality with regards to sex  the fact remains that women are considered the weaker sex.  The male is considered physically stronger, which is why he can work outside the home for long hours.  If a woman does the same, it may be that people would sexually harass or abuse her and she would not be able to defend herself.  Besides, it is the woman who gives birth to her babies.  She produces milk for them, too.  This is yet another reason that why she must be available for her children at home while her husband works away from home.  After all, she develops a stronger bond with her children.

     HoweverBut, in the African American culture, the woman is expected to perform duties that are traditionally assigned to the male, apart from her duties of the conventional woman (Hill).  This example clearly shows that gender roles are learned rather than fixed in nature.  Femininity,  or properties characteristic of the female sex,  are typically understood to be the following beauty, grace, talkativeness, mercy, forgiveness, patience, faithfulness and care for the family.  Although these defining qualities of the female sex may also define the male sex, it is the female that is typically expected to be more beautiful, graceful, talkative, merciful, forgiving, patient, faithful, and caring than the male.  Likewise, women may have strong, athletic bodies or great intelligence that might typically be expected of males.  Even so, the woman is usually defined with the above mentioned characteristics, that is, beauty, grace, etc. in books, films, and advertisements, whereas strong, athletic bodies and great intelligence are typically seen as male characteristics.  

     After all, Krafft-Ebings theory renders lesbian identity so as to make heterosexual women seem silly, evil or weak in The Well (Faderman, 1980, p. 320). When Hall constructs Stephens identity as manifesting truth, strength and loyalty to her self, she implicitly ratifies the relative inferiority and triviality of the women who accept the tradition patriarchal gender structure. This is exemplified by Stephen  being repelled by feminine traits and mannerisms, such as her childhood friend Violet, as follows Stephen found Violet intolerably silly  Violet was already full of feminine poses she loved dolls, but not as much as she pretended (Hall, 1991, p. 44). 

     Indeed, it is society that teaches women that they must guard their beauty, just as the remaining stereotypical characteristics of the female sex are expected of females.  Children Now, an organization that is concerned about learning imparted to children, has reported that 38 percent  of the females in the media  that the children are exposed to  happen to be scantily clad 23 percent  bare their cleavage or breasts 31 percent  expose their thighs another 31 percent  expose their midriffs or stomachs while 15 percent  bare their buttocks (Media Stereotyping).  Hence, the media seems to be teaching children that women must be considered as sex objects.

     Perhaps the inverts are rather advanced in their thinking as they do not adopt the belief that a male should not exhibit feminine characteristics and a female should not incorporate male characteristics.  In that case, ORourke is right to refer to Stephen as a hero.  It takes courage to be different.  Stephen had longed to be different (Hall 19).  Thus, her life must be considered successful.  Nevertheless, Halls book, The Well of Loneliness, gained negative attention when it was first published (Parkes).  Had Stephen been an invert but not a lesbian, this would not have happened.  As lesbianism goes against established religious norms, Halls book was quickly withdrawn from publication (Parkes). 

     Then again, Stephen would not change for this reason.  Indeed, she is comfortable with her identity of an invert.  Public censure would not alter this fact.  But Stephen would be willing to change her location,  as did Hall once her novel had been banned (Souhami).  Hall even lost her confidence as a writer following the ban (Souhami).  If Stephen had been branded corrupt,  as Hall once had been, when she had explained her identity to the public, like Hall,  she would be expected to lose her courage to explain herself to others (Souhami).  Even so, she would maintain her identity as she has never considered otherwise.              

Only Natural for Stephen Mary Olivia Gertrude to Be an Invert
     Hall dedicates her book, The Well of Loneliness, to our third selves (Hall).  Referring to the third sex or inversion, the author believed that it is absolutely normal for ones gender role to be reversed (Souhami Zimmerman 275).  According to the theory of inversion, the entire person of an invert female is masculine.  Hence, it is only natural for such a female to be sexually attracted to other females.  Most sexologists have claimed that the cause of inversion is congenital (Zimmerman 275).  Hall believed in this claim (Souhami).  However, if nature seems to have played an essential role in creating inverts, there is reason to believe that nurture too plays an equal -- if not the most important -- role in the development of inverts.  After all, Stephen Mary Olivia Gertrude is a female, although her parents had imagined they would have a baby boy (Hall 6).  When the child is born, it is the Vicar who insists on adding Mary Olivia to her given name, that is, Stephen, which is a male name (Hall 7).  Clearly, Stephens parents appear all set to socialize their daughter as a male.  In fact, Stephens mother believes that her daughter reminds her of her husband (Hall 10).  With these attitudes and feelings, Stephens parents have made it only natural for their daughter to develop as an invert.  Indeed, Stephen is an invert and a homosexual for she has no reason to adopt an identity other than that of Stephens, that is, the identity of a male.

     According to Hall, The Well of Loneliness was written with three purposes in her mind To encourage inverts to face up to a hostile world in their true colors and this with dignity and courage to spur all classes of inverts to make good through hard work, faithful and loyal attachments and sober and useful living to bring normal men and women of good will to a fuller and more tolerant understanding of the inverted (Souhami).  So, even though doctors such as Clarence P. Oberndorf have maintained that homosexuality is a compulsive neurosis having nothing to do with biological deviations, Hall would like people to consider inversion as a normal condition (Rosario 69-70).  Hence, it is only natural for Stephen to have a crush on Collins (Hall 10-12).  Hall writes that Stephen began to be very inattentive at her lessons, sucking her pencil, staring out of the window, or what was far worse, not listening at all, except for Collins footsteps (Hall 12).  What is more, Stephen has a good heart, and would like to bear all of Collins pains (Hall 16).  She expresses to her father that she would like to become a male (Hall 19).  Her father, who makes Stephen feel as though she were a friend, even notices movements of Stephens body resembling the bodily movements of males (Hall 18-19).  However, Stephen is not reprimanded for making such movements (Hall 19).  Thus, the female invert has no reason to change her behavior to resemble females.   

     ORourke notes that Stephens father played the role of a mother for his daughter, and she had been socialized to develop an interest in male hobbies, such as riding (ORourke ix).  The father tells the mother that Stephen may never get married (ORourke ix).  As suggested before, the attitudes and feelings of parents toward their child must play a vital role in the development of inversion.  Moreover, the reason that Stephens father played the role of a mother must have left no doubt in the young girls mind that it was normal to be an invert.  ORourke writes, Stephen Gordon is the perfect hero.  She is noble, accomplished, wealthy, self-sacrificing, honorable.  She has only one flaw  that she is a woman To be a heroine in life and fiction is something entirely different, something far from straightforward for Stephen Gordon (ORourke 1).  In other words, inversion comes naturally to Stephen.  Femininity, on the other hand, would take an effort on Stephens part to practice.  As Simone de Beauvoir states, One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman (Gammel 177).  Thus, femininity is a choice, also for those males who would like to practice homosexuality (Gammel 177).  Likewise, masculinity is a choice for Stephen.  She would say Do you think that I could be a man, supposing I thought very hard  or prayed, Father (Hall 19). 

     According to Sigmund Freud, all children are born bisexual, that is, essentially without gendered-object choice (Zimmerman 115).  He further stated that all people  are capable of making a homosexual object choice, and, indeed, most have at some point in their development, meaning that the distinction between normality and perversion is a matter of degree (Zimmerman 275).  For Freud, it is ones development in childhood that determines the degree of normality versus perversion as far as making homosexual choices is concerned (Zimmerman 275).  With this understanding, it must be reasserted that homosexuality and inversion are choices for Stephen, a female given the name of a male and largely socialized as a male.  As Stephen is satisfied with her choice, and femininity does not come naturally to her, it is unsurprising that The Well of Loneliness describes invert sexual pleasures in depth.  Armstrong writes

The Well is, in fact, deeply invested in articulating both invert identity and invert pleasures. It does so, however, in ways which rely on the novels particular and powerfully historicized articulations of human-animal relations. When such relations are read carefully alongside The Wells use of inversion theory, the novel opens up at several new levels, revealing radical articulations of identity and desire. Formulated through the conservative, gender-binary-driven collection of ideas called inversion theory, The Well mobilizes the weird logics of late-Victorian sexology to facilitate new narrative spaces for radical pleasures. The figure of the horse emerges as the pivotal agent for both the novels articulation of stable sexual identities and for its surprisingly radical multiplicity of erotic narrative strands.

     Two specific erotic strands run through the gloomy invert narrative of The Well, each of which is primarily articulated via the equine figure first, the horse enables the novels substantial autoerotic narrative, which concurrently establishes invert identity, while creating a narrative of intense pleasure through the masturbatory joys of horse riding and second, The Wells engagement with inversion theorys interest in breeding and race splices the human-animal binary onto the mutually determined, hierarchized binaries of masculine-feminine and Anglo-Celtic. In particular, the Anglo-Celtic racial binary structures a human-animal romance plot where the Stephen-Raftery bond moves across both the novels project of articulating desire between women and inversion theorys concerns with race, breeding, and degeneration. These trajectories of masturbation and romanticized bestial relations reveal new textual erotics elusive pleasures -- caught in hierarchized yet radically eroticized identificatory systems -- enter the narrative system at the stable door. (Armstrong 4-50)

     Stephen enjoys being an invert without having to dwell on Taylors description of her identity as pathological (Taylor).  After all, she has not only been socialized as a male but has also wished to be a male.  Stephen would be delighted to know that modern psychologists do not treat lesbianism as a disease (Zimmerman 276).  However, sexologists have not been able to find conclusive evidence that inversion is congenital either (Taylor).  Hence, for all intents and purposes, both inversion and homosexuality remain as choices for Stephen.  Even though the masculine and feminine are inverted in her mind, Stephen knows the value of invert pleasures, and has no intention to give up her identity as it is (Gammel 177).   

     Taylor writes that Stephen identifies with heterosexual males, and this is tied to the fact that her parents had wanted a male child and society tends to favor males.  Also, according to the author
A first encounter with Stephen Gordon demonstrates how blatantly Hall directs the reader to construct the characters gender as masculine. From the most basic physical and textual cues, the characters masculine body and male name, to those which are only slightly more subtly deployed, such as her gentlemanly manners and deportment, virtually everything in the representation of Stephens gender invites the reader response Thats a man Time and again, attention is drawn to the fact that Stephen feels like a man, or certainly does not feel like a woman looks like a man, or certainly does not look like a woman wants to be a man, or certainly does not want to be a woman indeed, would make a very good man, a far better man than a woman, in fact, to borrow a phrase from the critics, she would be the perfect gentleman  (Taylor).

     Stephen appears to have worked hard on herself to shape her identity as a mannish lesbian (Taylor).  She has sought the love of both her parents and society at large thus.  As her parents subconsciously went on wishing for her to be their male child, the girl incorporated masculinity to please them.  Perhaps Stephens mother was not really reminded of her husband as she considered her daughter.  It may have been a subconscious desire of her mother to see her daughter as a male.  Stephens father shared this desire, which is why the girl was given the name of a boy even before she was born (Hall 6-7). 

     Stephen must have subconsciously grasped this desire of her parents, which is the reason that she developed as an invert  considering that childhood development shapes personality, according to the most eminent psychologists, such as Freud. There is plenty of evidence that socialization determines both femininity and masculinity. Various religions and philosophies teach that males and females are exactly equal however, their physical differences in addition to societal teachings demand of them to perform different roles.  As an important example, around the world women are recognized as homemakers.  Traditionally, they are considered responsible for cleaning up their houses, cooking for their husbands and children, and helping the latter with their school work.  They must ensure that their husbands and children have clothes that are washed.  Taking care of the elders in the house, such as the husbands parents, is another traditional duty of the female.  Husbands or males are typically considered the breadwinners for the family.  Although countless people have already spoken against inequality with regards to sex  the fact remains that women are considered the weaker sex.  The male is considered physically stronger, which is why he can work outside the home for long hours.  If a woman does the same, it may be that people would sexually harass or abuse her and she would not be able to defend herself.  Besides, it is the woman who gives birth to her babies.  She produces milk for them, too. This is yet another reason that she must be available for her children at home while her husband works away from home.  After all, she develops a stronger bond with her children.

     However, in the African American culture, the woman is expected to perform duties that are traditionally assigned to the male, apart from her duties of the conventional woman (Hill).  This example clearly shows that gender roles are learned rather than fixed in nature.  Feminity, or properties characteristic of the female sex, are typically understood to be the following beauty, grace, talkativeness, mercy, forgiveness, patience, faithfulness and care for the family.  Although these defining qualities of the female sex may also define the male sex, it is the female that is typically expected to be more beautiful, graceful, talkative, merciful, forgiving, patient, faithful, and caring than the male.  Likewise, women may have strong, athletic bodies or great intelligence that might typically be expected of males.  Even so, the woman is usually defined with the abovementioned characteristics, that is, beauty, grace, etc. in books, films, and advertisements, whereas strong, athletic bodies and great intelligence are typically seen as male characteristics.  

     After all, Krafft-Ebings theory renders lesbian identity so as to make heterosexual women seem silly, evil or weak in The Well (Faderman, 1980, p. 320). When Hall constructs Stephens identity as manifesting truth, strength and loyalty to her self, she implicitly ratifies the relative inferiority and triviality of the women who accept the tradition patriarchal gender structure. This is exemplified by Stephen  being repelled by feminine traits and mannerisms, such as her childhood friend Violet, as follows Stephen found Violet intolerably silly  Violet was already full of feminine poses she loved dolls, but not as much as she pretended (Hall, 1991, p. 44). 

     Indeed, it is society that teaches women that they must guard their beauty, just as the remaining stereotypical characteristics of the female sex are expected of females.  Children Now, an organization that is concerned about learning imparted to children, has reported that 38 percent of the females in the media  that the children are exposed to  happen to be scantily clad 23 percent bare their cleavage or breasts 31 percent expose their thighs another 31 percent expose their midriffs or stomachs while 15 percent bare their buttocks (Media Stereotyping).  Hence, the media seems to be teaching children that women must be considered as sex objects.

     Perhaps the inverts are rather advanced in their thinking as they do not adopt the belief that a male should not exhibit feminine characteristics and a female should not incorporate male characteristics.  In that case, ORourke is right to refer to Stephen as a hero.  It takes courage to be different.  Stephen had longed to be different (Hall 19).  Thus, her life must be considered successful.  Nevertheless, Halls book, The Well of Loneliness, gained negative attention when it was first published (Parkes).  Had Stephen been an invert but not a lesbian, this would not have happened.  As lesbianism goes against established religious norms, Halls book was quickly withdrawn from publication (Parkes). 

     Then again, Stephen would not change for this reason.  Indeed, she is comfortable with her identity of an invert.  Public censure would not alter this fact.  But Stephen would be willing to change her location, as did Hall once her novel had been banned (Souhami).  Hall even lost her confidence as a writer following the ban (Souhami).  If Stephen had been branded corrupt, as Hall once had been, when she had explained her identity to the public, like Hall, she would be expected to lose her courage to explain herself to others (Souhami).  Even so, she would maintain her identity as she has never considered otherwise.