Category: Katharine Maller

Final Project (I will post a statement shortly)

Speaking of the threshold of revelation… Part 2 of Angels in America provided the perfect set up for the second half of Middlesex, with Cal/Calliope providing the perfect portrait of the “threshold of revelation.”  Simply speaking, if I didn’t fully grasp it at the end of Angels in America, I certainly do now.

Incest, Middlesex, and Intersex Having only read the first two books of Middlesex, I feel this post must be about incest, a topic that Eugenides handles with incredible grace and tenderness. 

Beyond the Pleasure Principle First, in the document “Policing Public Sex in a Gay Theater, 1995” (Peiss, 454), I found the degree of detail mandated quite interesting.  Not simply “what act,” which would be the only legitimate question in regards to sanitation, but full bodied descriptions, proximity of the voyeur, and the lighting.  If an […]

Thoughts on Sula In her essay, Stevenson presents a very clear, though complex, depiction of slave sexual and marital relations; sex was generally encouraged only between married couples and pre-marital pregnancy led to marriage, and, in terms of monogamous relationships, fidelity was highly valued.  Most important in her analysis is her assertion that “[Slave kin] […]

Dr. Humbert and Destitute Dolly Kaitlyn mentioned how Part 2 attacks psychology, and I completely agree.  I felt this most strongly in chapter 1, when H.H. uses Dolores’ natural resistance to being kidnapped and raped against her: “I am not a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child. The rapist was Charlie Holmes; […]

Dolores, or Lolita Something very intriguing to me in Nabokov’s Lolita is the fact that Humbert Humbert needed to create a separate identity for Dolores (much like, as Jaslee pointed out, he needs to create “nymphets” to rationalize his lust for young girls.)  To him, Dolores is hardly ever Dolores – she is sometimes Lo, […]

Various thoughts on love and sex in the 19th century Perhaps aptly, “Alice Mitchell as a ‘Case of Sexual Perversion’” was published by a Comstock: T. Griswold Comstock.  His analysis was appalling, in my opinion.  There was indeed something wrong with Alice Mitchell – some sort of mental disorder that caused her to murder another […]

“Double Standard of Sexual Morality.” In Cott’s essay, I was particularly intrigued by the Puritan “double standard of sexual morality” (133), in which women, being of the weaker sex, were more prone to succumb to temptation, even though it was not permitted for them to initiate sexual acts. This lead to greater blame for women […]

All You Need is Love: The Scarlet Letter, part 1 I love that Nathaniel Hawthorne has written a psychological novel with The Scarlet Letter – in my opinion, his descriptions of Dimmesdale compose an acute portrait of human suffering and guilt.  Hester Prynne is worth countless critical essays, but in light of this weeks readings […]