Corinne Blackmer points out that "ince the term 'passing' carries the connotation of being accepted for something one is not, the title of the novel serves as a metaphor for a wide range of deceptive appearances and practices that encompass sexual as well as racial passing" (100). McDowell explores the connection between passing for white and passing for straight, arguing that the "more dangerous story-though not named explicitly- of Irene's awakening sexual desire for Clare" (xxvi). I offer here a reading of Absalom, Absalom! similar to Deborah McDowell's famous reading of Nella Larsen's Passing. In Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! two paired male relationships, that of Quentin and Shreve in the novel's present and that of Henry and Charles in the novel's past, couple the sexual taboos of homosexuality and miscegenation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |