Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - Enikő Bollobás: (De-) Gendering and (De-) Sexualizing Famale Subjectivities: Woman-Hating and Its Revisions in Literature and Painting
Melanctha Herbert had not made her life all simple like Rose Johnson. Melanctha had not found it easy with herself to make her wants and what she had, agree. Melanctha Herbert was always losing what she had in wanting all the things she saw. Melanctha was always being left when she was not leaving others. Melanctha Herbert always loved too hard and much loo often. She was always full with mystery and subtle movements and denials and vague distrusts and complicated disillusions. Then Melanctha would be sudden and impulsive and unbounded in some faith, and then she would suffer and be strong in her repression. (86) The reader knows next to nothing about Melanctha's physical appearance; her identity is in no sense determined by the preparation of her body for heterosexual romance. Stein describes her in a way in which mostly only men are described: as a wanderer and as a person having desires and pursuits. I would like to suggest this: had we not been informed of Melanctha's gender, we would probably assume that a man is being portrayed here. The less important but more obvious reason for this probable misperception is that her character traits are such as are traditionally used to represent some male "essence": that she is bold and intelligent, "complex" and "desiring" (83), that she "had not loved herself in childhood" (87), that she "had always had a break neck courage" (87), that "it was only men that for Melanctha held anything there was of knowledge and power" (93), or that she would "do [...] things that had much danger" (99). More significantly, our assumption about the person here described being a man would be based on our reading experience gained in a patriarchal, heterocentrist, and often misogynist culture: it is this experience —prompting the knowledge that such characteristics are emphasized in connection with men only —that creates our expectation about the character as gendered male in this text. Stein deflates our expectations by denaturalizing the social constructions of male and female identity, by taking away its "naturalness" as produced in patriarchy. The result is a person whose autonomy and questing selfhood provoke love and respect defying all misogynist expectations. 113
