Homosexuality
Intro:
1885 Labouchere Amendment (acc. Furbank EMF = 6 yrs of age) – homos = illegal.
1967 Wolfenden report – homos = legal (EMF = 87) thus, for most of life, his sexuality would have ended him in prison EMF key witness for this report.
1895 O Wilde = 1st man convicted of homosexuality on basis of Picture of Dorian Gray - EMF = 16 and, acc Furbank, wanted to be writer – how can he write about who he is and stay free? Maurice – only overtly homosexual novel publ posthumously – rest had to be in code.
Shed loads of context
Introduce key areas of argument:
• Symbolism of collar stud
• Free indirect discourse
• Fielding and exile in India
• Fielding and Socratic method
Structured, coherent argument
Para 1 – Symbolism of the collar stud – breaking down of homoerotic/ homosocial divide in Chapt 7 – bring in Sedqwick. Focus on lang and critics.
Para 2 – Different characters invade the narrator’s voice – they give their own perspective – this shows, for ex. In Aziz’s comments that he finds Adela unattractive a. Indian access to narrator’s voice – subverts trad of omn narr in colonial fiction but b. also shows Aziz less attracted to women – counters Silver’s claims that Chapt 16 and ‘rape’ likely.
Focus on lang, critics, context, comparisons and connections
Para 3 Fielding had ‘gone to the bad and repented thereafter’ – has also been linked to schoolboys, policeman and the insane in England and sees Indians as like Italians (we know, from other novels –Where Angels Fear to Tread, A Room with aa View – that Forster saw Italian men as homoerotic) – seems that he is embroiled in homosexual scandal at home, at least implied, and that for him India is a place of refuge and exile – could link to GK Das and his work, claiming that EMF was v sexually active during his own period in India, in the run up to the composition of the novel, when he worked as Secretary to Maharajah of Dewas Senior. Could link here to the irony of...