Feminist Criticism

The statutory proceedings were complex by the publisher's proactive withdrawal of tumefy to avoid an dirt fine and his declaration in court that the human relationship in the text was intellectual and not unnatural, as against mansion house's earnest zest to have the novel read "as a supplication for 'those who are utterly defenceless, who being from birth a raft set apart in accordance with some cabalistic scheme of Nature, need all the help that society basin give them'" (Parkes 439). Well was also beleaguered by divided little opinion. Among the Bloomsbury set Well was considered "sincere" and "restrained" in style merely also too on-the-m atomic number 53y polemical, and in Bloomsbury that counted against it as art, except aggressively the set might defend Hall's legal reclaim to publish.

Parkes makes two additional points about the controversy surrounding Well that are relevant to feminist and gender/queer studies. The firstborn is that Hall's plea for the socially scorned was not part of the legal record, except insofar as Hall, who in real liveness seems to have cultivated the stereo veritable(prenominal) image of the masculine woman, managed a courtroom outburst of her projects. Officially, though, the publisher's assertion of the intellectual quality of the relationship between Stephen and bloody shame became the basis for the ban. What that came down to was that "Hall was denied a voice not only by her official antagonists simply by her own side as well" (Parkes 439). Parkes continues:

Madden, Ed. "The Well of Loneliness, or the Gospel match to Radclyffe Hall." Journal of Homosexuality 33 (June-July 1997): 163-186.

The overt gesture of the invert, in concert with her deliberate meditation on the act, is decisive: for heroes, transcendence and cleverness are all, and in Well, transcendence = silence and solitude. Undoubtedly Hall wanted some version of social sanction for inverts; patently an absence of social opprobrium would do. That is Stephen's gift to Mary and Martin.

And so to the narrative itself. The exercise of silencing the lesbian in court speaks (if one may so put it) directly to Sedgwick's critique of treatment that proscribes and limits homosexual identity and that therefore calls for gender/queer sarcastic voice.

The evidence of Hall's personal life is that she vigorously opposed such(prenominal) limits, at least for herself. However, the action of Well closes with Stephen's relinquishing Mary to Martin. One assessment of that action is that, Stephen silences not only herself but also, symbolically and to her everlasting shame, the lesbian voice in society. On this view, yielding to the heterosexual imperative is anathema.

Stephen's Romantic-hero image is established first on by descriptions of her physical beauty in toll of masculine, ascetic athleticism. There are frequent allusions to Stephen's facial scar, typical of the lore of Romanticism and aristocratic dueling and consistent with her fencing skill. Her foreboding about her parents' anxiety for her, her restrained response to Anna's overt contempt, eventide her sudden homoerotic clarity at the very routine of Martin's youthful heterosexual approach--all of these she bears with emotional poise. Her disavowal of Mary is so heroically systematic that she seeks out Val?rie Seymour's collaboration to ensure its effectiveness. of a silence that is not imposed on her but that she wilfully adopts (Boy Scouts must be prepared):

Hall's tolerance polemic was an attribute of the view that "fe
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