Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Szilvia Nagy: I Can Operate in the Dark—Bodies are Phosphorescent... Occult Modernism and Myth-Making in Djuna Barnes 's Nightwood

lesbianism, moreover, it conforms to the conventions of genderspecific clothing. Robin's marrying a man and bearing a child is of minor importance when all the while she dresses in men's clothes. In contrast, Nora does not marry, does not have a child, and has relationships exclusively with women; still, she dresses in women's clothing. She can actively violate a number of social conventions by virtue of her sexual behavior and it will still not be enough for the purpose of 'qualifying' as an invert of culture's definition. Even the disruption of gender roles goes unnoticed if it is not accompanied by an outwardly visible inversion; it is Robin and Matthew who are visibly subversive, and this turning around of the rules that culture sets up for them is their way of "restoring the primordial chaos of transvestism or genderlessness" (Gilbert 218). In the reconciliation ritual the individual reaches a state of consciousness that is true to the prehistoric wholeness of (un)sexed self: The girl lost, what is she but the Prince found? The Prince on the white horse that we have always been seeking. And the pretty lad who is a girl, what but the prince-princess in point lace

—neither one and half the other ... in the girl it is the prince, and in the boy it is the girl that makes a prince a prince

—and not a man. (114) By embracing and consequently eliminating the inner conflict of male and female, one "journeys beyond"

—and before

—"gender" (Gilbert 196). While costume is the perpetrator of binary positioning in modern homogenized culture, in the course of their ritual transformation Robin and Matthew appropriate it for their own means to eliminate that same artificial positioning and thus create an alternative reality of inclusivity. Robin seems to exist at the 'twilight' of the night, that is, she incorporates within herself all three pairs of dualities that I examined. She emanates an "'odour of memory,' like a person who has come from some place that we have forgotten and would give our life to recall" (100); at the same time, there is an antagonistic quality to her existence which keeps her discontent. As Nora puts it, "she was asleep and I struck her awake... . she who had managed in that sleep to keep whole... . and there before my eyes I saw her corrupt all at once and withering, because I had struck her sleep away" (121). When Nora took possession of her in love, when she was awakened from her sleep 82