Queer Love and Affect in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods
Pro Gradu Thesis University of Eastern Finland Philosophical Faculty English Language and Culture
Oona Ala-Honkola April 2020
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Philosophical faculty Osasto – School
School of Humanities Tekijät – Author
Oona Ala-Honkola Työn nimi – Title
Queer Love and Affect in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä – Date Sivumäärä – Number of pages English language and culture Pro gradu -tutkielma X April 21, 2020 118
Sivuainetutkielma Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma Tiivistelmä – Abstract
This thesis analyses Jeanette Winterson’s novel The Stone Gods using a combination of affect theory, queer theory, alterity, and love taxonomies. By utilising the different theories in tandem, the aim was on one hand to locate salient links between the theories, and on the other conduct an analysis of on the relationship of Billie and Spike, the main characters of the novel. The aim of this thesis is to analyse and categorise the queer love affects found in the novel. I posit that the love affects and the model of love varies in each segment of the novel. The narrative of The Stone Gods consists of four segments presenting four distinct cycles of time, each with its specific type of relationship between Billie and Spike.
The theoretical framework for affect is the sociocultural theory of affect, most notably the theories of Sara Ahmed. Ahmed’s theory of affect also connects to queer theory and otherness/alterity through the concept of “affect alien”. The perspective of queer theory address queer affect, but also nonnormative temporalities such as the notions of queer cyclical time, queer futurity and “queer utopia”, a term conceived by José Esteban Muñoz.
The concept of alterity, as proposed by philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, is presented along with the concept of otherness. The two quite similar notions converge with queer theory and the love taxonomies chosen to be employed in the analysis of the novel. The love theories and taxonomies have been developed in the field of psychology of love. The thesis utilizes two taxonomies, Ellen Berscheid’s
“four candidates for a temporal model of love”, and the Communal Responsiveness theory by Margaret Clark and Joan Monin, to form an inclusive method of analysis.
In the analysis section I examine the similarities between each segment of the novel, and following that I consider each segment individually. The constant aspects repeated throughout the narrative is the queerness of the relationship between Billie and Spike, which consists of their queer sexualities, affects, and their position as queer, or Other, as defined by the surrounding normative societies.
Another constant issue is the desire for the attainment of true love, which however remains unattainable.
The first segment’s relationship between Billie and Spike is lesbian romantic love between human Billie and robot Spike, characterised by desiring and passionate affects. The relationship in the second segment is, in turn, gay male romantic love that can be summarised by erotic and adoring love affects. The third segment commences with a compassionate love relationship between the characters, Billie as the newborn child and Spike as the unnamed mother. The relationship is defined by fearful love affects that follow Billie to her adulthood in the third segment and the new budding romantic relationship with a new robot Spike. The fourth segment turns the relationship again into a compassionate one, this time Billie as the mother and Spike as the child. The love affect that marks this segment is fearful and desperate, as their affects become mismatched.
The various loving relationships throughout the novel are an indicator of the universal nature of the true love connection between Billie and Spike, able to persist and renew itself through time. It also indicates the specificity of their love, as their true love remains even though its surface-level characteristics such as gender, species, or familial relation, vary from segment to segment.
Avainsanat – Keywords
affect, love taxonomy, love studies, queer theory, queer studies, Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods, literary studies, otherness, Other, alterity, posthumanism, postcolonial queer studies, queer temporality
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Filosofinen tiedekunta Osasto – School
Humanistinen osasto Tekijät – Author
Oona Ala-Honkola Työn nimi – Title
Queer Love and Affect in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä – Date Sivumäärä – Number of pages Englanning kieli ja kulttuuri Pro gradu -tutkielma X 21.4.2020 118
Sivuainetutkielma Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma Tiivistelmä – Abstract
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Tämä tutkielma analysoi Jeanette Wintersonin romaania The Stone yhdistelemällä teorioita affekteista, queer-teoriasta, toiseudesta, sekä rakkauden taksonomiosta. Eri teorioita yhdistelemällä niiden yhteydet korostuvat, mikä luo keinon analysoida romaanin päähenkilöiden, Billien ja Spiken, moninaisia suhteita. Tutkielman tarkoituksena on analysoida ja kategorisoida romaanissa esiintyviä queer-tyyppisiä rakkauden affekteja. Esitän, että rakkauden affektit ja rakkaus-tyypit vaihtelevat jokaisessa romaanin neljässä osiossa. The Stone Gods - romaanin narratiivi koostuu neljästä osasta, joista jokaisella on oma ajallinen syklinsä ja jokaisessa esiintyy tietynlainen suhde Billien ja Spiken välillä.
Teoreettinen viitekehys pohjautuu affektiteorian eri suuntauksista valittuun sosiokulttuuriseen affektiteoriaan. Hyödynnän erityisesti Sara Ahmedin aihetta käsitteleviä tekstejä. Ahmedin affektiteoriaan vankasti kuuluva käsite affektikummajainen (affect alien) yhdistyy myös queer-teoriaan ja toiseuden käsitteisiin. Queer-teoriasta nousevat tutkielmassa hyödynnetyt queer-affektit sekä ei-normatiiviset aikakäsitykset (nonnormative temporality) kuten syklinen aika (queer cyclical time), queer-futurismiin (queer futurism), sekä queer- utopiaan (queer utopia), termi jonka on kehitellyt queer-teoreetikko José Esteban Muñoz.
Toiseuden käsite on yksi tärkeistä teoreettisen viitekehyksen osista. Filosofi Emmanuel Levinas on eritellyt toiseuden kahteen tyyppiin, jotka ovat ”alterity” ja ”otherness”. Yhdistän molemmat käsitteet queer-teoriaan ja rakkauden taksonomioihin hyödyntääkseni niitä romaanin analyysissa. Teoreettisessa viitekehyksessä esiteltävät rakkauden teoriat ja taksonomiat tulevat puolestaan psykologiasta.
Keskityn erityisesti Ellen Berscheidin malliin: neljästä ehdokkaasta rakkauden ajalliseen malliin (The Four Candidates for a Temporal Model of Love) sekä Margaret Clarkin ja Joan Monin teoriaan nimeltään yhteisöllinen reaktioteoria (Communal Responsiveness theory).
Yhdessä nämä teoriat mahdollistavat inkluusivisen mallin rakkaus-tyyppien analyysiin.
Tutkielmani analyysiosiossa tarkastelen ensin romaania osioiden yhteneväisyyksiä, jatkaen analyysiä jokaisen osion kohdalla erikseen.
Yhteneväisyyksistä oleellisin on Billien ja Spiken suhde, joka on aina muodoltaan jollain tapaa pervo, outo, tai queer. Heidän suhteensa queerius tulee esille heidän seksuaalisuutensa, affektinsa sekä heidän sosiaalinen asemansa queerin ja toiseuden piirissä normatiivisessa yhteiskunnassa. Toinen yhteneväisyys on halu saavuttaa tosirakkaus, mikä kuitenkin pysyy päähenkilöiden saavuttamattomissa.
Romaanin ensimmäinen osio käsittelee Billien ja Spiken suhdetta joka on muodoltaan romanttinen lesborakkaussuhde ihmis-Billien ja robotti-Spiken välillä. Suhdetta voi parhaiten luonnehtia affekteilla jotka ovat kiihkeitä ja intohimoisia. Toisen osion suhde on vuorostaan homoseksuaalinen ja romanttinen rakkaussuhde Billyn ja Spikkesin välillä, affekteiltaan eroottinen ja palvova. Kolmas osio alkaa
rakastavana suhteena äidin ja hänen vauvansa välillä. Tutkielman mukaan Billien sijoittaminen vastasyntyneen lapsen rooliin tarkoittaa, että Spike on hänen nimeämätön äitinsä. Affektiivisuudeltaan heidän rakastava suhteensa on pelokas, ja tämä pelokas rakkauden affekti seuraa Billien mukana hänen aikuisuuteensa, jossa hän tapaa jälleen kerran robotti-Spiken. Kolmas osio päättyy aluillaan olevaan romanttiseen suhteeseen Billien ja Spiken välillä. Neljäs ja viimeinen osio muuntaa tämän suhteen romanttisesta takaisin äidilliseen rakkauteen. Tällä kertaa Billie on äidin roolissa ja Spike lapsen roolissa. Tätä osiota luonnehtiva takkauden affekti, on niin ikään pelokas ja epätoivoinen, kun heidän affektinsa eivät ole yhteensopivia uudessa, utooppisessa tilassa.
Billien ja Spiken rakastavien suhteiden moninaisuus ilmaisee heidän tosirakkautensa universaalisuutta ja kykyä jatkaa olemassaoloaan ja uusiutua läpi aikojen. Toisaalta suhteiden moninaisuus osoittaa myös erityisyyttä, sillä heidän tosirakkautensa ilmenee, vaikka heidän sukupuolensa, lajinsa ja perhesuhteensa vaihtelevat osiosta toiseen.
Avainsanat – Keywords
rakkaustutkimus, affekti, queer-teoria, queer-tutkimus, Jeanette Winterson,The Stone Gods, kirjallisuudentutkimus, toiseus, posthumanismi, postkolonialistinen queer-tutkimus.
Table of Contents:
1.Introduction ... 1
1.1.Aims and Structure ... 1
1.2.Jeannette Winterson’s Novels and Their Themes ... 2
2.Theoretical Framework ... 6
2.1.Affect ... 7
2.2Alterity versus Otherness ... 15
2.3.Taxonomy of Love ... 18
2.4.Queer Theory and Affect ... 28
3. Analysing The Stone Gods ... 37
3.1.Affect, Alterity, and Queerness in TSG ... 39
3.2.Queer Love Affects ... 43
3.2.1.Planet Blue: Chance Upon Queer Romantic Love ... 45
3.2.2.Easter Island: Worshipping Homosexual Love ... 64
3.2.3.Post-3 War: Fearful Love Affect and Lost Love ... 74
3.2.4.Wreck City: Compassionate Love and the Queer Child as the Future 86 4.Conclusion ... 107
Bibliography ... 111
1. Introduction
1.1. Aims and Structure
The Stone Gods (2007) is a novel by Jeanette Winterson, an author famous for her feminist fiction. The novel’s key theme is love between the two main characters and how, as they are reincarnated time and again, their love also changes in form. The main characters express Platonic love of different degrees as well as romantic and sexual types of love. In this thesis I will compare the types of love the main characters express in their reincarnations with the help of the theory of affect. As issues of queerness and alterity are reoccurring themes in their relationship, I will also examine the ways in which appear in the novel, and in what ways they affect their relationship and love.
Love, queer sexuality, and cyclical time are all reoccurring themes in the works of Winterson. These themes are also central in The Stone Gods and have been studied by many literary critics and theorists throughout Winterson’s oeuvre. The study of affect, however, has been a slightly less popular issue in the analysis of her work. The Stone Gods has not been researched as thoroughly as her early and best known works such as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Written on the Body, which is due in part because of the recent publication of the novel and the recent interest in the study of affect. This lack of attention is one of the reasons why I have chosen to analyse this particular novel from the array of Winterson’s novels. Moreover, as the study of affect has not been applied widely to the work of Winterson, it will in turn enrichen and bring out new aspects into the study of her writing.
I will begin my thesis by introducing the theoretical framework of the study. The theory I am applying to the text consists of a mixture of approaches to the politics of affect, alterity, queer studies, and love. I will research how alterity and the different types of love
tie together into the feelings that the two main characters have for each other, which differ with each reincarnation of the pair. The affects present in the text are numerous, but the focus in this study is on affects related to love. The first part of the theoretical framework will concentrate on the theory of affect. Following that, I will continue with the distinction between otherness and alterity, then move to the terms of love and finally queerness and queer studies by defining them and their aspects. In the analytical part, I will apply my theory to The Stone Gods (henceforth abbreviated TSG). I will examine each of the characters’
reincarnations and relationships and compare them to each other from the perspective of affect theory. I will also link the other elements that impact their loves, namely alterity, and queerness, which I see as important factors in their relationship(s). The thesis will close with a conclusion of my reading and suggestions for future analysis.
1.2. Jeannette Winterson’s Novels and Their Themes
Jeanette Winterson and her works have been an interest for many a literary critic and study, which can be seen in the vast amount of reviews, articles, texts, and books on her and her novels. Winterson has both charmed and infuriated with her work (see e.g. Andermahr’s overview on Winterson’s reception among critics in her contemporary critical guide), which is known for its lyrical and poetic prose, clever language, and deep subject matter. According to Sonya Andermahr as well as Susana Onega, most literary critics approach Winterson through either feminism, queer theory, postmodernism and -structuralism, or a mixture of them (see Andermahr 4; Onega 2).
Jeanette Winterson is notorious for repeating and returning to certain themes in her novels. Her novels create a quasi-continuum between them by returning to and inspecting the same themes from different points of view, developing and contemplating on them. The
novels share a red string which a reader can follow through her separate novels and which is thus referred as a “novelistic cycle” by Lucie Armitt (23). Winterson’s novels allude to each other, not in quotations but in themes and sentiments that echo throughout her oeuvre.
Winterson’s novels deal strongly with love, the unattainability and struggle for the truest kind of love (whatever it may be), with a journey of self-discovery that is never-ending and returning on itself and “[remaining] unfinished” (Armitt 19). Onega also locates love and questing as the two central themes in Winterson’s fiction (4). To quote Gustar, “Winterson thus suggests that the story she is compelled to repeat is one that has no resolution in language. Stories are evidence of their own necessity and their incompleteness guarantees their continued circulation” (60). Gustar proposes that the repetition within Winterson’s novels is due to an unachieved desire for the lost love (61). She continues that the “narrative, then, is the signifier of perpetual desire to recover our loss by means of language. Hence, neither narrator nor reader is liberated from loss at the conclusion, but each is sent back to repeat the story again, or else to remain, as indicated by the blank page following on, deathly silent” (Gustar 62). Because writing and language are unable to encompass the desire, they are left lacking and in Winterson’s case also unfinished and repeating, coming back again and again in an attempt to achieve the unattainable closure.
Other reoccurring themes include the relationship between mother and child, as well as the concept of past and the future and cyclical time (Armitt 24). One could expect the notion of past and future, concepts tied to linear time, be at odds with cycles of time but in actuality they tie together strongly in Winterson’s cyclical narratives and might even crash through the linear time by existing simultaneously. Cyclical time, in addition to being overtly tied to
‘women’s time’ as noted by Julia Kristeva in an essay with the same name, is also tied to stories and storytelling, another theme characterising Winterson’s narration. Onega writes
of earlier “author-narrator[s]” in Winterson’s novels that turn out to be writing “the stories of their lives in retrospect” (115). So does also Billie in TSG, although unaware of her past person’s contributions to the text at a later time. This “confers a circular structure of the novel” within a novel (Onega 115).
In addition, Winterson’s novels are heavily preoccupied with the body, especially the female body. From performing gender and sexuality to body image and immersion with the social and cultural inequalities of women’s bodies, Winterson writes empowering, alternative, queer, and thoughtful characters who redefine and break the norms (Haslett 50).
The body politics in Winterson’s novels, at the heart of many narratives, is that “however one’s body is constructed, one can be loved for oneself, not measured against a physical ideal” (Haslett 52). The true love that Winterson’s characters struggle for finally goes beyond the body towards an individual level of being, to love that encompasses the whole person, the body, mind, and soul. According to Sonya Andermahr, the loves present in Winterson’s novels “use[…] the particular and the specific experience […] to express something universal about what it is to love” (93), thus going beyond both hetero- and homosexuality, towards what could be termed as queer love.
While Winterson’s novels do not exclusively represent lesbian love, which has infuriated some of her fans (see Onega 3, Haslett, Armitt), the loves and relationships she writes are more often than not queer in form. Queer love does not conform to the heterosexual expectations and gender norms, instead they can be reversed, moulded, transformed, made strange, and played with. Queer love does not necessarily correlate only with relationships within the LGTBQ-spectrum, although it is a major component. Queer love can also include relationships that are perceived as strange, unusual, or even in worst cases, wrong, by the
surrounding society. Norm revolting characters and loves are a staple in Winterson’s novels, and appear in both the centre and the background of their narrative.
The themes in Winterson’s novels presented above also all appear as major themes in TSG, as perhaps one would expect, knowing Winterson’s tendency to return to the self-same interests and pestering themes. In TSG (queer) love, the body, cycles, repetition, and the search for self-discovery are not easily separated and presented as distinct themes, as they together form the narrative’s plot and “forward” moving energy. In the following section I will present my chosen theory for analysing the themes brought up in this chapter.
2. Theoretical Framework
While TSG is ripe with possibilities for different points of view of reading and analysing, such as ecocriticism, gender studies, feminist theory, posthumanism, or postmodern theory, to name a few, the theories and schools of thought to be considered in more depth here are the theory of affect, love taxonomy, queer theory, and alterity. While this analysis will briefly touch upon gender, and while it is impossible to ignore the feminist criticism evident in Winterson’s novels, the real focus will be on how the queer, the affective, and love are all wrapped together in a way that enables reading of the relationship(s) of Billie and Spike, the main characters of TSG.
This section will open up the most important aspects of theories to the chosen analysis of the novel. Starting with affect theory, I will first define affect as a term, following with its main fields of study. I introduce the approaches by focusing especially on the sociocultural node and affect theory in literature. Following that, I will shift towards alterity and otherness, presenting the differences between the two very similar concepts as defined by philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. The themes of otherness in the novel also tie to queer studies, and alterity, seen more closely in the relationship of Billie and Spike. Thirdly, I address love taxonomies, with a brief overlook of the current theories within psychology.
Before presenting the most widely applied taxonomies both in research and in mainstream culture, I give a short critique of the heteronormativity evident in the most prevalent taxonomies. Subsequently I will introduce two more inclusive theories that are not dependent on heterosexuality, and that take into account friendship love and familial love as strong types of love standing on equal ground with romantic and sexual love. The theories are the
Communal Responsiveness theory and the four temporal models of love. After introducing them I present their possibilities of application with affect theory, as well as queer theory, focusing especially on queer love and its aspects in theory. Stepping more firmly to queer theory, I begin with the introduction of queer theory at large. Finally I narrow down my focus on queer theory to its similarities and possibilities of utilisation with the concept of otherness and affect theories, tying the theories together to be employed in the following analysis of TSG.
2.1. Affect
The theory of affect, while a moderately new subject of study, has been addressed in many fields of study recently. It has been used for instance in the philosophical, feminist, sociological, and anthropological disciplines. However, the so called “affective turn” has also woven its way into many of the scientific fields in the turn of the century. According to Langlotz and Soltysik Monnet, the focus on feelings, affect, and emotionality has replaced the earlier study of the linguistic and the mind as the current trend in academia (13). Its wide application and interdisciplinary study within a wide array of fields has also conceived strongly distinct points of view as to the origin, understanding, and application of affect.
Affect theory is generally divided into two main factions that have haunted many theories since the Cartesian dualism, the contrast between mind, or consciousness, and body (Robinson): the biological and the cultural (see Liljeström and Paasonen 17-19; Armony and Vuilleumier, 16) or the somatic and the cognitive respectively (Furtak 19). The biological alignment sees affect as a completely or almost completely biological reaction. According to this view, affects are automatic reactions to stimuli manifesting physically in the body, that people are unable to control themselves such as crying or being surprised (see for
instance Tomkins’ theory of affect systems 63). They are thus biological and not learned, which would in short lead to the assumption that every person can have the same affects as the other. Affects in a purely biological view are universal, bound to instinct and nature. The cultural side, on the other hand, argues that most, if not all, of the affects are learned.
Therefore, while affects manifest in the physical body and consciousness of a person or persons, the affects themselves are culturally learned and constructed and given meaning and interpreted through (see e.g. Terada 4; Furtak 14; Valovirta 8)
This may explain why people from different cultures or even people within the same socio-cultural sphere with different experiences might not perceive an affect or a feeling in the same way. For example, a person living closer to the equator does not feel the same affect of kaamosmasennus as a Finnish person would. Kaamosmasennus is a feeling many Finns experience during the cold and dark time of the winter when the sun is over the horizon for only a briefly each day. A person can feel lethargic, heavy, melancholic, and without motivation. Moreover, these feelings are tied to the body, and together they are a very specific type of feeling down, one that is associated with the term and felt during the darkest period of the year. The affect that comes with this occurrence is completely unknown to those who have not experienced it themselves and thus its affect is in a sense learned, much in the same way as people experience certain feelings and emotions differently in their bodies.
Going even further, the affect of hate in the stomach can also differ depending on the person and culture: the affect can be felt as heaviness, coldness, tension, or turmoil (among others) in the area of the stomach, or in intestines and liver. The affects can also be very hard to explain as mere heaviness or tension in a specific area of the body. A person can experience affect in just one distinct part of the body, but it is often an accumulation of numerous sensations all over the body that together form an affect. The division between the biological
and cultural origins of affect is not in truth hardly ever as clear-cut, and often affect theorists acknowledge the presence and influence of both in affects (see e.g. Reddy 15-6; Sharma and Tygstrup 14; Taylor 7).
At this point the difference between affects, emotions, and feelings must be discussed in order to understand the theory of affect better. The term emotion is in most cases understood as psychological and attuned with conscious awareness of a feeling (Vermeulen 8). In its simplest terms affect is seen as a physical reaction caused by a feeling or emotion.
It is therefore tied into the body and the experiences of the body. It is also, according to Rei Terada both physical and psychological (Terada 4): affect is a physical, bodily way that psychological emotion and feeling manifest, but one that they also twine together and where they are inseparable from each other (Valovirta 8). How emotions and feelings have an effect on our bodies, but also how emotions and feelings manifest in our body is at the core of affect. As I briefly mentioned above, emotion is understood as an identifiable and knowable feeling, while an affect is less clearly identifiable. Vermeulen attributes affect with confusion and the uncertainty of what a person is feeling physically and psychologically (10).
Adding to the obscurity and uncertainty that one might not always even be certain what has caused the affect, is that similar affects can be triggered by very different feelings. A simplifying example is that a person can cry from sadness, anger, or happiness, among other feelings, but sometimes they are unable to identify what emotion they are feeling when crying. Affect eludes strict identification, naming, and straightforward classification to a single emotion (Vermeulen 8-10) but while some of them “evade strict meaning-formation and categorization […] [they] leave their imprint” (Valovirta 46) on a person or a thing.
To return to the division between biological and cultural affect theory, affect can also be seen as a subconscious reaction to an emotion, which may explain the difficulty of
describing affects. Because we are not conscious of having these ‘automatic’ reactions, we cannot identify them. However, as Vermeulen points out, this thought does not take into account that people become aware of their affects, and that it is impossible to avoid
“consciousness, cognition, intention, and narrative” (9) in human experience. Furtak describes this in slightly differing words: “emotions are embodied affective recognitions that provide us with a crucial vehicle of awareness” (14). According to Furtak, the affective emotion is “outwardly oriented” (36), meaning that affects can be experienced inwardly through the body, but also between the one experiencing the affect and the thing it is directed towards. It is a part of how we perceive and engage with the world around us. Furtak also proposes that “in order for our somatic feelings to be emotional, they must be experienced as being about significant features of the world” (43; emphasis original). This, in other words, indicates that by turning our focus on certain feelings we in turn give them attention and intent, which all together form an emotion to be felt, with direction and affect.
The main point that Furtak makes is that in experiencing emotions both the intent of the emotion, or its direction, and the process of feeling it within the affective body, are crucial to experiencing emotion (46). Affect, according to the perspective of Juvonen and Kolehmainen, can include emotions and bodily responses, but it is also more than those as it is also an “embodied non-linguistic, and non-conscious” (4) way of relating, understanding, and meaning-making, both within and externally of the body. Juvonen and Kolehmainen thus agree with Furtak’s view of affects being the way in which people connect and belong to the world around, but also the way they separate and distance from it. They also claim that affects are not strictly internal and subjective, but rather intercorporeal and trans- subjective (6), which suggests that groups of people can experience and cultivate even massive affects that can spread widely.
Sara Ahmed is also of the same view as Furtak, Juvonen, and Kolehmainen, positing affect as sociocultural. In her widely cited essay “Affective Economies”, she posits emotion and affect as societal capital, as it circulates through objects and subjects, individuals and masses, and by circulation the affect gains strength and affective weight (“Affective” 120).
Affect is thus, according to Ahmed, a way which people interact and communicate, come together or apart, through sharing and circulating affect. The circuit of affect can be wide and far-reaching, but it can also be on a micro level, like circulating the affect of love between two people or even affect within one person.
Sara Ahmed presents affects and their values as cumulative, forming based on past experiences both psychic and social (“Affective” 120). According to Ahmed, affective feelings do not originate from within a person but rather they ‘stick’ to objects, which then affects others (“Creating Disturbance” 32). While affect does not originate from the individual, subjects can also direct affects to objects, which can in times ‘stick’, especially when such affect is repeated by others. Affects therefore form continuous loops, which strengthens the affective weight every repeat of the cycle (Ahmed, “Creating Disturbance”
33-4). Affects can also come together from numerous objects such as space, place, time, past experience, and so on, to link a strong affective feeling and emotions to a person and/or public, as “things are already in place that inclines us to be affected in some ways more than others” (Ahmed, “Creating Disturbance” 32-33).
William Reddy discusses affect using a different term, ‘emotive’, especially in verbal communication with another person. According to Reddy, “[e]motives are themselves instruments for directly changing, building, hiding, intensifying emotions, instruments that may be more or less successful” (Reddy 105). Reddy claims that these emotives, or emotional utterances, are affected by a specific feeling, as well as forming that feeling, either
accentuating or deaccentuating it by increasing or decreasing its attention (105). Reddy claims that before forming utterances, the mind is bombarded with different impulses, but which impulse one focuses on is translated into coherent thought and intention, which can lead to emotives. It can be deduced that affects are the very same impulses a person receives, which might be brought to attention and formulated onwards in the consciousness, or be ignored, leaving them to the unconscious mind. This, however, does not mean that their effects cannot be felt, experienced or observed by the person themselves or by others. Reddy continues: “[e]motion cues that are inadvertent cannot have the same transformative effect, unless they are drawn into attention after they occur” (106). This follows Ahmed’s view of feelings and affects compounding through repetition and thus gaining strength and affective weight. In such a way affective responses and actions are culturally and socially learned, as the way to react and repeat certain affects (positive or negative) is learned through interaction and the affirmation of the borders between subject and object, society and individual.
Becoming and being aware of the ways society’s norms shape our affective responses and being sociable, opens up the possibility of challenging them, of reorienting affective ways of performance and repetition.
But what about when the affect one experiences is different from the expected? Ahmed is aware that being misaligned with the surrounding affect does happen, and according to her, a person becomes an “affect alien” in such a moment (“Creating Disturbance” 34). She also writes: “The gap between the affective value of an object and how we experience an object can involve a range of affects, which are directed by the modes of explanation we offer to fill this gap” (“Creating Disturbance” 34). Being alienated and pushed away from the society and reigning cultural norms in such a way, is not necessarily negative, as it can bring to light injustices, microaggressions, inequality and so forth: “You can be affectively
alien because you are affected in the wrong way by the right things. Or you can be affectively alien because you affect others in the wrong way” (Ahmed, “Creating Disturbance” 36). In intrapersonal relations, the movement of affect and feeling can also be accepted and repeated in a communal way, you are excited about something, which makes me excited about you being excited for example (Ahmed, “Creating Disturbance” 38). Such feelings might also be rejected, ignored, or misconstrued by the other, which in turn either transforms the affect, reorients it, or stops it altogether from “sticking” or repeating (Ahmed, “Affective” 120;
“Creating Disturbance” 35).
Communal responsiveness can be united with Ahmed’s theories concerning the politics of feeling. As a concept, communal responsiveness relies on the repeating of positive and confirming affects within a relationship to maintain it and nurture it. According to Clark and Monin, in mutual communal responsiveness the acceptance of a gesture as it is, and of affect by expressions of gratitude strengthen the bond and the positive loop of affection (206).
The key word here is responsiveness, meaning that the responses are aligned and complimentary of the other’s affect and actions. If the affect is misconstrued or misaligned, the loop of communal affect breaks. For example, if one does not accept a gesture of communal responsiveness such as help or a gesture intended as affective, and instead takes it as a duty or a debt to be repaid, the intended affect fails and is transformed to a less positive one.
Because affects are experienced and perceived differently, this generates many different readings and descriptions of affect. Moreover, affects are more often than not ambiguous. As stated above, they can be very specific feelings in the body, but most often many feelings that are both physical and psychological form the affect. Precisely because of the ambiguity in identification, it allows for a wide range of interpretations. Especially in the
study of literature, these invite possibilities of reading. The study of affect in literature depends heavily on the reader (Valovirta 8). Because affects are a mixture of bodily and psychological responses to feelings or emotions that can be difficult to explain even by the experiencer, the way in which affect is interpreted and accepted relies on the lived life and experiences of the reader. The “complex and multifaceted” affects cannot, according to Valovirta, be placed in “the classical categories of emotion” (63), which allows the reader a freer range of interpretation of their meaning. As Langlotz and Soltysik Monnet claim, affects “remain hidden to our immediate perceptual and conceptual grasp” (12).We can see, or in this case read, the affect figuratively by taking note of the character’s visual and physical expressions, thoughts, and actions, but we cannot perceive in actuality the emotion or feeling the character is experiencing (Langlotz and Soltysik Monnet, 12). Affects promote the dialogue between the text and the reader, for without the reader, the affect is left without meaning. It needs the interpretation of a reader because of its ambiguity. At the same time the reader is able to draw their own interpretations from the clear classification-resisting affect.
The reason I have chosen to use affect in my analysis of The Stone Gods is that the novels by Winterson in general deal heavily with the body and the bodies of the characters.
Because of this occupation with physicality in her works in particular, I find that the application of affect fits the study of TSG particularly well. The inner feelings and bodily responses of the characters are often described at length through allusions, symbolism, and imagery, while Winterson lets the affect speak itself and interpretations to flourish. The reader can attempt to discern the emotions and feelings behind these affects, but there is no single truth in them.
2.2 Alterity versus Otherness
The following section concerns the two similar terms, alterity and otherness, their theorisation, and application in literary analysis. Both are shown to be crucial topics in TSG, especially in their difference in relation with the self/other distinction. I begin with an argument for a focus on alterity in the analysis of the relationship of Billie and Spike.
Following the argument, I introduce Levinas’ theorisation on otherness and alterity, and the difference in valence between the terms.
The reason for focusing on alterity as opposed to otherness, which is the key issue on this section, is that in TSG the relationship of Billie and Spike does not rely on the division into us/them based on otherness. Their identities and communication acknowledge their differences without reducing the other to sameness by reflecting it through their own self.
While the separating notion of otherness is present in the novel as well, it emphasises alterity as the dominant way of interaction between the main characters, which in turn shapes their relationship. The notion of alterity is especially appropriate for my analysis, as it “often arises in analyses of relations between the self and the other (person), in discussions of encounters between different cultures, and in observations upon the difficulty of understanding the art and thought of past ages” (Treanor 5). These are all aspects that can be found in the novel and are notably evident in the interaction between Billie and Spike. The heightened difference assigned to Spike due to her identity as a “Robo sapiens”, the “first artificial creature that looks and acts human, and that can evolve like a human” (TSG 17), is one of the crucial points in the novel. Moreover, Langlotz and Soltysik Monnet write that the theory of affect is interested in the “boundaries between human and nonhuman”, which has risen with the postmodern thoughts of post-humanity (13). This boundary between who
is considered human and who is not is one of the central themes in TSG, and an important moral issue in the love of Billie and Spike.
The term alterity has recently become a more popular term. It was first coined in the 1980s by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (37), but its use has begun to grow only in the past ten years or so. The reason for using the term alterity in my research is that it gives a more positive and equal view on cultural differences, whereas using the term otherness immediately positions the Other as lower standing and inferior. Alterity acknowledges the differences between Self and Other, without demeaning the other in the process. In alterity the identity of the Self receives more focus than the identity of the Other. The identity of the Self is constructed through distinguishing it from the Other (Roberts 4). Otherness on the other hand, has automatically built in itself the idea that the Self and others belonging to the same ‘group’ are superior to the Other. According to Treanor, from the stance of otherness, the Other is adapted according to the known norms and conventions of the Self, which means it is reflected through the thoughts of the Self. The Self here indicates the personal worldview, culture, and experiences of which the identity of a person or a group consists of. The Other, then, signifies a person or a group which does not share these aspects.
In otherness there may be a need “to convert something unknown (other) into something known” (Treanor 4). This indicates that in the concept of alterity, contrary to the notion of otherness, the Self is constructed by reflecting it through the identity of the Other, while in otherness the Other is constructed by reflecting it through the Self and thus what the Other lacks to be excluded from the sphere of Self and the known. Levinas writes on the meaning of alterity: “we recognize the other as resembling us, but exterior to us; the relationship with the other is a relationship with a Mystery” (Levinas 43). The “Mystery”
Levinas mentions is the notion of the sheer unknowable that is outside of the “Self”. The
other, that is exterior to the “Self”, will always remain an unsolvable mystery due to personal aspects such as gender, age, cultural background, sexuality, to name a few. Levinas also ties the Other to time, especially to the future. As the future is not known, neither is the other.
Thus, “the very relationship with the other is the relationship with the future” (Levinas 44).
It must also be noted that the Self and the Other are both alterable, depending on the point of view and what they are compared to. For example, in some cases someone who belongs to the same Self, may be perceived as Other in other situations, depending on the point of view. Moreover, the dichotomy of us/them is an imaginary grouping based on a false sense of sameness within a perceived group of say, nationality, gender, ethnicity, and so on. In the division between us and others, it is assumed that everybody included within a group, whether Us or Them, is identical in values, ideologies, and stances, crudely assuming similarity where in truth there is none. It pushes those who do not belong to the group towards the status of other, due to their perceived nationality, gender, and ethnicity, among other identifying aspects.
Levinas claims that the construction of identity begins with acknowledging the Other, because one’s own identity is built by reflecting it through the identity of others (47). As a result, the alterity between the Other and the Self must be acknowledged and respected.
Moreover, as Treanor writes, the differences need to be viewed from the point of view of the Other, rather than the Self (Treanor 5). Roberts adds to this that with alterity comes also “a relationship of responsibility”, and that “communication and dialogue are crucial” for alterity to emerge and function (Roberts 5). The philosophy of alterity “seeks to preserve the otherness of the other and to respect the difference that distinguishes the other from the self”
(Treanor 5). There is a fine line between otherness and alterity, which is very easily crossed.
Roberts reminds us that by focusing too much on one’s alterity, there is a danger of focusing
too much on the identity of the Self, which, in turn, objectifies and condescends the Other (Roberts 194). In these cases, alterity goes overboard and thus become a false kind of alterity, which promotes the imbalance between the Self and the Other (Roberts 194).
To sum up, while otherness and alterity are almost similar terms and may be at times used interchangeably, there is nonetheless a basic difference between them. Otherness and alterity are important factors in my analysis of TSG, not only due to the distinction between the society of the novel and Spike, but also between Spike and Billie themselves. Alterity in its foundation is based on equal worth between different individuals and groups, and acceptance of the exteriority of the Other from the Self. In alterity there is no need to render the Other known and thus alike to the Self, but rather is respected as Other. On the other hand, otherness indicates an imbalance between the Self and the Other, degenerating to the thought of us/them where the unknown Other is seen as fearful and threatening, as a danger to the Self. The perceived other is pushed outside of the sphere of the communal Self to Other. Such otherness imposed on groups and individuals by the majority has been in turn employed by the Others as a point of individuality and pride, as with such oppressed minorities as blacks, queers, women, disabled, or working class to name a few. Otherness is employed and theorised especially ardently in queer studies. Later in the section I tie the notion of alterity/otherness together with queer theory, as also in the analysis part of this thesis.
2.3. Taxonomy of Love
Love, as an emotion, a feeling, or an affect, can be found almost without a doubt in one way or another, in any kind of fiction. Loving another, the love for kin, friends, children, significant others, material or immaterial possessions and concepts litter the pages of novels,
short stories, and poems both overtly and covertly. Love motivates characters and people to act, to behave, and feel in certain ways; it is almost impossible to escape! Especially in Western literature, and perhaps even starting to spread to other literatures due to the influence of Western culture, the idea of true love is most prevalent (Belsey 6, 23). True love and desire have a long history in Western cultural history, from courtly love all the way to modern Harlequin paperbacks (Belsey10-11). True love, according to the Western cultural standards, is a union of two people, wherein both the mind (sense) and the body (desire) of the individuals come together seamlessly (Belsey 23).
Love as an object of study or analysis is often overlooked, as it is taken for granted.
Love is a universal emotion, so perhaps it is expected that there is no need for any closer analysis of the ways love is presented in literature. In this thesis the focus is especially on the taxonomy of love, that is, on how forms of love are categorized. A person can love their close ones in many different ways depending on their relationship. For example, one loves their friends and family differently from their romantic partners, and these different feelings of love manifest generally in a certain way depending on the type of love. One might presume that when discussing and analysing love, its polar opposite should also be discussed, in other words, hate or dislike. However, it must be noted that love and hate, while on the other ends of positive and negative emotions and affects, do not correlate as one might at first expect (Berscheid 6). Having negative interaction and feeling momentary dislike towards another in an interpersonal relationship does not diminish or affect the feeling of love and affection. Since love and hate are distinctly separate feelings that one can feel at the same time towards a specific object, I have chosen to focus here on love and love affect instead of juxtaposing the two as two sides of the same coin. Love and hate need to be
examined as separate elements, with their own scales and aspects, that might overlap slightly as all feelings do, but are not opposite to each other.
What this section mainly addresses are the definitions of love types given through psychology: since the most widely accepted taxonomies of love originate from psychology it is an obvious choice. I began my search for a taxonomy most suitable for the purpose of my study from the volumes The New Psychology of Love (2006) by Robert Sternberg and Karin Weis, and Psychology of Love 101 (2013) by Karin Sternberg. The definitions in the books are generally easy to understand and applicable to the theoretical frame of this thesis.
There are numerous different theories and identifying lists of the types of love. My most significant critique on the taxonomies of love presented by Sternberg and Weis, as well as by many other scholars, is that the theories presented are very heteronormative. As the relationships to be analysed in TSG are first and foremost queer in form, I find the lack of a queer-inclusive taxonomy troubling. The abovementioned books focus solely on heterosexual relationships and do not include any gay or queer representations of love. The idea of homosexual love is mentioned in the latter book, but it is small and insufficient, a meagre two pages in length (20-21). That is not to say that the theories given would not be applicable to people in the LGBTQ spectrum, which they certainly are, but the descriptions by Sternberg and Weis make the types of love, especially romantic love, seem exclusively directed towards heterosexual couples. The types of love a person can feel are not in any way dependent on their sexuality. In addition, Karin Sternberg keeps insisting that attachment, attraction, and love are biological, there mostly for reproductive reasons (Psychology 16, 18), which is also a heteronormative claim. This claim does not, for example, take into account non-normative relationships, such as LGTBQ relationships, or romantic relationships where the couple is unwilling or unable to conceive offspring, whatever the
sexual orientation of the couple may be. Lastly, such views on attraction have been debunked numerously (see e.g. Bailey) and is in itself an absurd statement for trying to erase same-sex attraction, which undisputedly exists.
With reference to the taxonomies of love presented by Karin Sternberg, the first one to be introduced is the three attachment styles as presented by John Bowlby. According to Karin Sternberg, attachment theory is one of the roots of the categorization of loves, and Bowlby’s attachment styles are “secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent” (Psychology 24- 25). These styles were originally used to describe the different ways a baby is attached to their caregiver, but the three styles can and have been applied to adult relationships as well (Karin Sternberg, Psychology 26). In addition to the attachment systems, Bowlby also classifies three “behavioural systems: an attachment system, a caregiving system, and a sexual system” (Karin Sternberg, Psychology 27). These three describe the general types of love a person may feel towards others. The behavioural and attachment systems work together in a person’s relationships, and the feeling of love may be a mix of many of the styles.
Other categorisations of love include the colours of love theory by John Alan Lee, which consists of three main romantic types of love (eros, ludus, and storge) and the three mixtures of them (mania, pragma, and agape) (Karin Sternberg, Psychology 37-39). The terms describing different types of love have been taken from classical Greek mythology and follow the theme of the type of love presented in the myths. According to Lee, Eros is described as passionate love, storge is commitment and friendship-based, ludus type of love is more like a game of conquests (Lee 42-44). Mania, a mix of eros and ludus, is passionate type of love, which swings from one extreme of feeling to another, Pragma is a mixture of storge and ludus, characterized by pragmatism and hesitation to commit unless set criteria
are passed, and finally, agape is between eros and storge, an altruistic kind of love (Lee 45- 48).
The other taxonomies of love follow mainly the same pattern of categorisation and descriptions using different terminology, but also adding to them other dimensions of love, namely parent-child love and friendly love. The ancestry of all the love taxonomies lies in C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves (1960), where Lewis first proposed different types of love in accordance to love of and for God. As the taxonomies presented above all derive their base from Lewis’s writing, it is unsurprising that The Four Loves is suffused with outdated heteronormative, misogynistic, classist, and homophobic judgements.
Lewis divides the types first to Affection or storge (53), which Lewis considers more as a love by proximity and familiarity than a friendship love (60). Friendship or philia is the second type in Lewis’s list, one that is “freely chosen” (89). Lewis’ opinion in his
“Friendship” chapter is that men and women are incapable of forming Friendship love because of their differing social spheres, and quite overtly paints the women at fault, both in the failure to form Friendships with men, and in breaking up Friendships between men as well (Lewis 108-110). Such generalising observations might be due to his times, but nonetheless leave a sour taste in the mouth due to the misogynistic quips and reinforcement of the old and demeaning image of women as Eve, the biblical source of all evil. Not unsurprisingly, Lewis is also of the view that men and women are incapable of forming Friendship love, or that it will surely slide to Eros, the sexual love, as it in his opinion is
“healthy” and natural between men and women (111). All the while Lewis also tries to strongly deny the possibility of Friendship between men lacking any “abnormal Eros” (93), or homosexuality in the current (for his time) society (90, 93). Lewis is at pains to erase and deny homosexuality, as if it, or friendships between men and women, disappeared suddenly
in the first half of 20th century. Lewis clearly does not wish to acknowledge their existence in his present. Whether Friendship turns to Eros or develops between individuals at all has nothing to do with their sex and much more to do with their cultural background, the society they reside in, and personal interests, which Lewis does acknowledge (108). But while he does seem to realise this, Lewis still reverts this difference as a fault of the women as not
“qualified” (110) to enter the, in his view, “superior” male sphere of Friendship and conversation. Women conversing with each other are belittled as performing mere “women’s talk” (Lewis 110), while the men according to Lewis have lofty “discussions” (110) with
“ideas” (110) and “subjects” (109).
Moving on, the third of the loves is Eros, romantic or rather the state of “being in love”
(Lewis 131). Lewis separates sex and Eros partially, as one can exist without the other as well (132). The last one of Lewis’s forms of love is Charity (163), which in his words is
“Divine Gift-Love”, the ability to love the “naturally unlovable” (177), even the bad sides of people. Charity becomes not because someone is lovable, but because the love of God is in those who love the unlovable (Lewis 138). The most applicable taxonomy, however, is neither of the aforementioned views, but rather a mix of two theories that are fitting to a queer point of view and the analysis of TSG. They are based on the earlier taxonomies but build a more comprehensive and inclusive theory of love.
The two theories I have chosen to use as a part of my theoretical framework are the more recent additions to the list of categories of love. Briefly discussed above, The Communal Responsiveness theory of love differs noticeably from the traditional taxonomies of love (Karin Sternberg, Psychology 50). Margaret Clark and Joan Monin, the authors of the theory, note that the focus in communal responsiveness is on the recipient of affect(ion) in the form of support and actions, rather than on one’s own person (202). It could also be
described as a level of unconditional love and affection. According to this theory, the amount of mutual responsiveness indicates the level of love between people (Clark and Monin 207).
The actions and responses also differ depending on the relationship. For example, the communal responsiveness is different between a romantic couple, and two friends, and the levels of responsiveness to one another can also vary (Clark and Monin 207-208). Karin Sternberg describes communal responsiveness as “being sensitive to the partner’s needs, helping and supporting without expecting immediate payback” (Karin Sternberg, Psychology 51), but as mentioned above, mutuality is a crucial part of the theory. Communal responsiveness cannot be one-sided, but the level of intensity can differ between individuals in the relationship.
The other theory I have chosen is Ellen Berscheid’s presentation of “the four candidates for a temporal model of love” (Berscheid 12). While Sternberg and Weis introduce many different taxonomies of love that are all more or less similar and interchangeable, Berscheid’s terms and their description do not demand too much specialist terminology. Berscheid has named the forms as companionate love, romantic love, compassionate love, and adult attachment love (Berscheid 12). Berscheid is interested in the temporal nature of these different kinds of love, and how they evolve and change over a period of time, which is why she has coined the classes as such (11). According to her theory,
“none, one, or some combination of the four” (12) can be present at the same time in a relationship, but also that the different types are likely to change in a certain way, specific to the type. Moreover, Berscheid notes that each of these types of love has to be assessed separately in a relationship because of their different nature (12). Karin Sternberg describes the need for such categorization as” each [love] is associated with different behaviours and each has different underlying causes” (Psychology 55), which means they are crucially
different from each other in their nature. I will go through the types and their features below briefly.
Companionate love is, as its name suggests, a friendship love, based on companionship.
Its important elements according to Berscheid are similarity, familiarity and “expressions of esteem” (Berscheid 13). Berscheid describes it as a slow building, but stable kind of love, which is according to some research an important element in preservation of a romantic relationship, and even a crucial foundation to romantic love (Berscheid 13). The following, romantic love as a term is quite self-explanatory. It is in most cases labelled with sensual and sexual desires, but also affection and companionate love (14). An important factor in romantic love is passion, the intense emotional state of mind and arousal which in Berscheid’s view are strongest at the beginning of a romantic relationship (14-15). She also notes that romantic love is quick to wane as the relationship progresses. Romantic love is thus relatively quick to form and intense in its affects, but stabilizes and diminishes somewhat after the relationship is no longer novel. While Berscheid focuses on the emotional quality of romantic or “passionate” love, in the study of affects the physical, automatic, and conscious reactions must also be taken into account.
The third type, compassionate love, is often a parent-child type of love and based on caregiving and supporting others (Berscheid 16). The notion of communal responsiveness is also a major part of compassionate love, but it is applicable to other types of love as well.
Berscheid too declares that communal responsiveness is “theorized to contribute to a sense of love in all types of relationships— friendship, family, and romantic” (17). Compassionate love grows with the feeling of safety and protection, and most of all mutuality. Berscheid claims that if a partner is unwilling to give or accept support and help from the other,
compassionate love decreases: unwillingness to accept or give support depends heavily on the situation, but also on prior experiences in the relationship (17).
The fourth type of love is known as the adult attachment love, which is essentially about feeling attachment to another person. It can be detected by seeking the other’s proximity and feeling “distress when involuntarily separated from that person and grief when the loss is permanent, for the individual views that person as unique and irreplaceable”
(Berscheid 18). Berscheid states that how such love is formed is unclear, but compassionate love is an element that is usually, but not always, needed for attachment love to develop (19).
Like companionate love, adult attachment love seems to grow slowly and gradually, without conscious acknowledgement. Interestingly, according to studies attachment love seems to persist much longer than other types of love (Berscheid 19). Even when relationships have ended and a person feels hatred or dislike towards their old partner, they can still at the same time feel attachment and occasional yearning towards the other (Berscheid 19).
The communal responsiveness theory and Berscheid’s categorisation of the four types of love are thus the two taxonomies that I will apply in the analysis of TSG. I argue that in each transmigration of Billie and Spike, a specific type of love is prevalent in their relationship. Moreover, the prevailing type of love is shown in their affects. The most pressing question to be dealt with in the analysis of this text is how to combine and analyse the textual affects of the novel with the types of love. By distinguishing different forms of love, their differences in behaviour, emotion, intent, and relationship are mapped. The acknowledgement of these differences between types means that we should also be able to notice the difference between the affects of love. How do romantic love, companionate love, compassionate love, and adult attachment love differ from each other in terms of their
resulting affect? My aim in the analysis is to first and foremost distinguish the loves by affects present in TSG.
It is perhaps not surprising that many theories discussing love focus much on romantic love as opposed to companionate love, compassionate love, or adult attachment love. What is surprising is that so many of the theories place such a heavy focus on marriage, a social construct based on religion in many cultures. It seems that marriage is considered to be the goal and the obvious road to take in romantic love. In doing so, the studies and theories seem to leave out romantic relationships that are not placed in the traditional marital sphere.
It brings to question whether romantic relationships not ending up in marriage due to cultural, social, or personal reasons are deemed less important to love studies than those that do. It is strange that such heavy emphasis is placed on marriage, when romantic love does not automatically equate marriage, or is in any way preposition to it. Moreover, as José Esteban Muñoz declares, marriage is part of a long-lasting societal ideology (21). In the heteronormative society it is “assumed that all arrangements will follow from the arrangement of the couple: man/woman” (Ahmed, The Cultural Politics 147), meaning that heterosexuality is interwoven into many normative structures of Western culture and ideology. According to Ahmed, heterosexuality is a crucial part of the ideal life, which is in truth unattainable by all by its basis of being an idealised fantasy (The Cultural Politics 149, 154). Why chase after the unattainable ideal and instead actively fight against its constriction of everyday life? When contrasting the idea of marriage with queerness, LGBTQ rights and ideology, Muñoz suggests that “[t]he aping of traditional straight relationality, especially marriage, for gays and lesbians announces itself as a pragmatic strategy when it is in fact a d e e p l y i d e o l o g i c a l p r o j e c t t h a t i s h a r d l y p r a c t i c a l” ( 2 1 ) .
Of the different types of love coined by Berscheid, compassionate love, or friendship love, is perhaps most in tune with queerness. Heather Love points out the importance of friendship and non-familial relationships to queers throughout history as a mode of intimacy and acceptance (76-77). Friendship with likeminded people is a strong staple of queer/LGBT culture even today, as attested by studies (for an overview see Morris; Galupo) and personal experience alike. Denounced as Other, apart from the heteronormative and gender conforming society, the LGBTQ society is at the same time set free of the expectations and rules of expression governed by the majority. LGBTQ as a minority group has been free to create its own culture of gender expressions, sexuality, and politics as the other and outside of the dominant heteronormative culture. Thus generally, queer people are more ambivalent and open with gender expression, sexuality, and affection (sometimes only within the safe sphere of queer kinship) and thus not as bound to gender roles and expectations of friendship and relationships cultivated by the Western heteronormative and masculine-led culture. For example, Max Morris found in his study that while “cross-orientation friendships” among gay male university students in England are becoming more common in the wake of acceptance of various identities and masculinities, and the absence of homophobia in campus, most participants still formed tight-knit gay friendship circles and “continued to view their gay identities as the most important feature about themselves” (Morris 1199).
2.4. Queer Theory and Affect
The perspective of queer studies to be employed in my analysis is central to the reading of love in TSG. Queer studies have been present in the study of affects through the lens of the
‘other’ including minorities and LGBTQ lives. As Heather Love sums up in her book Feeling Backward (2007), queer history and queer studies are heavily preoccupied with loss, anger, not belonging, shame, and other feelings of negativity, which are an integral part of queer
studies. In her introduction, Love briefly brings up the turn in queer culture to the positive and empowering affirmations, that try to forget or transform the tragic history of queer lives (2). Love wishes to concentrate on the negative aspects and affects of/in queer literature as a way to look at the past while simultaneously moving forward to a better, brighter future.
My question is: why draw such a harsh line between positive and negative affects, between the past and the future? I believe in incorporating both, the positive and the negative, seeing them as one unit since one surely cannot exist without the other. Separating them so clearly takes away and ignores the complex affects interwoven and present in queer lives and experiences. Queer life and theory should not be based solely on the negativity and struggle of the past, and neither in the utopian positivity of the future, but rather take both aspects in the present as what Ahmed sees a “starting point a critique of the world as it is and a belief that the world can be different” (Ahmed, “Happy Futures” 161). Like in the case of Billie and Spike, their queer lives and loves are not completely permeated by neither melancholy nor hope.
According to Jenzen, as well as Edelman, and Muñoz, an aspect of queer love is the open futurity of possibilities, one that resonates with the cyclical theme of TSG strongly (see Jenzen 45; Edelman 4; Muñoz 91). Muñoz discusses queer utopia at length in his book on the subject, as something both not-yet-here and already gone, not part of the present.
Moreover, According to Jenzen, in Winterson’s novels “love is characterized by its unassimilability and potential for taking us into a ‘future yet unthought’” (Jenzen 45). TSG’s focus on cyclical time can be read as a forever returning queer futurity with “an opening or horizon” with endless possibilities (Muñoz, 91). While the brink of the end of the world seems repeatedly predetermined, through the potentiality of the queer love between Spike
