Subscribe
Notify of
30 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tiffany Graham
January 17, 2017 1:05 pm

Tiffany,
I’m so glad you asked these question. In Chapter fifty of the novel Hall describes inverts, “craving for religion”. She goes on to say that the craving of religion “surely was one of their biggest problems. They believed, and believing they craved a blessing on what to some of them seemed very sacred—a faithful and deeply devoted union”. This part of the novel I am sure I understand and I am able to make a pretty in-depth assumption. Hall informs the reader that homosexuals seek religion in hopes of acceptance. They crave the same union as man and woman and they believe the only way to be blessed with that is through religion and faith.

However, there was a part on religion that confused my and made me contradict everything I thought I’d figured out. I was reading at a good pace and then I came across the part where Hall describes “the Invert” and her connection to religion. Hall writes, “It was quite true that inverts were often religious, but churchgoing in them was a form of weakness; they must be a religion unto themselves if they felt that they really needed religion”(255). I was really confused by what Hall was implying. Was she trying to imply that church going and religion was a waste of time for homosexuals? Or the “form of weakness”
 they only went in order to admit their way of life was wrong?

Brandon Hardy
January 20, 2017 11:27 am
Reply to  Tiffany Price

Hi Tiffany! I like what you’re getting at with the second point. I think we can agree that a vast majority believe that religion and homosexuality are incompatible, but I wonder to what degree this idea relies on a particular notion of identity. After all, being a Christian, for example, is not so dissimilar from being a homosexual, as they are both representative terms that one uses to describe some dimension of one’s self: values, behaviors, etc. I’m not sure if one cancels out or replaces the other, but I do think that the idea of homosexuality as a “religion or faith of its own” is an interesting thought; it does carry its own belief systems, but those are very personal and can be defined differently: what it means to be homosexual for one person may vary greatly from the next, and the same applies to what it means to be a Christian. Just some thoughts!

Emily Tucker
January 20, 2017 6:05 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Price

Tiffany,

I really like the questions you’ve posed to us. I believe that there is a similar span to Christianity as the one mentioned in Jagose’s Queer Theory. I think there are those who do not abide by the church, but still regard themselves as spiritual. A person may still pray, or put their trust in a higher being without going to church. This spectrum seems to work in a sense that one can believe in god without being Christian, just as one can still have sex with someone and reject homosexuality. The characteristics that describe Christianity are not mutually exclusive to being a Christian, just as the characteristics of homosexuality are not exclusive to being gay.

Jen Denis-Hill
January 19, 2017 5:45 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Graham

Tiffany-
That quote really stuck out to me, as well. I think the “weakness” might parallel the “weakness” Puddle saw in Stephen. In Puddle’s eyes, Stephen was a strong woman, yet her constant worry and constant connectedness to the emotions of the people around her made her weak. Puddle yearned for Stephen to cease worrying about the thoughts and feelings of the people around her who disapproved of her and to live for herself. In the same vein, I think Hall was presenting the invert as someone who yearned to be accepted by the church, even though the church shunned him/her. The churchgoing, then, was a weakness, a cry for approval and acceptance from an institution (and the people within it) that he or she would never receive. That’s why that need would only be fulfilled by the fellow invert and why they must be “a religion unto themselves.”

Jen Denis-Hill
January 20, 2017 7:49 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Price

Great questions, Tiffany. I think Puddle was key in giving Stephen a figure other than her father (and the only female figure, really) to serve as a source of love, support, and guidance. Puddle often tried to help Stephen recognize the need for her to glean strength from herself instead of the people around her. However, Puddle could have been an even stronger support had she ever had the courage to explicitly “come out” to Stephen. I think if Stephen would have realized that Puddle, too, had gone through many of the same struggles, she could have faced the world around her with more confidence and less fear. It makes me think of today’s “It Gets Better” campaign: LGBT adults letting kids know that they understand the struggle, have struggled that struggle, and that it gets better. If I had been exposed to that as a kid, I can’t even begin to think about how different my childhood may have been. Same concept for Stephen. So, while Puddle was a great source of support and love for Stephen, I found myself wishing she would have been more.

Jen Denis-Hill
January 21, 2017 8:13 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Price

Great points, Tiffany. I think you’re probably right re: whether or not Puddle’s coming out would truly help Stephen. Puddle lived in a loneliness and with unrealized potential that might have discouraged Stephen. I do, think, however, that Stephen knowing she wasn’t alone in her feelings (especially as a child) might have been beneficial.

Stephanie Lineberry
January 18, 2017 7:18 pm

Tiffany, During the end of the Victorian era, the vast majority of the population, particularly the upper echelon, was Episcopalian, an off shoot of Catholicism. Within the Catholic faith there are the seven tenets of the Catholic faith, or the seven things any good Catholic should strive for. Of those, there are nuances throughout the book that elude to Stephen’s struggle to still remain, if not Catholic, at least by definition, “good”. The first tenet of respecting the human person was seen through several instances but I will mention Stephen’s wishing for Collins to be well by she herself taking on Collins’ injury. To my recollection Stephen is never seen disparaging anyone outright but seems only to be in conflict with her inner self and the image of what is expected of her through her familial religion. Another tenet of the Catholic faith is to promote the family. Before the age of IVF, surrogates and publicly accepted adoption, it was expected that well bred women have babies. The opening of the story makes it pretty clear that Sir Philip and Lady Anna Gordon were blissfully happy, and within that Utopia was the expectation that children would come. Their heartache and struggle to conceive highlights what was expected of them and that their Utopian balance depended on offspring. There was no logical way Stephen would be conceiving children and that in itself creates another inner conflict that as a woman, Stephen had to come to terms with. One other tenet I will touch on is the goal of working for the common good. Clearly, Stephen had somewhat of a self preserving side as she shunned Martin’s advances but strives to still do good for others as she sacrifices her own relationship with Mary for Mary’s benefit. In the final lines of… Read more »

Stephanie Lineberry
January 18, 2017 8:17 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Price

I think the struggle for Stephen is wanting to believe in God’s teachings as they are and wondering why God would make someone like her. There is a conflict with what the church has taught her and with who she is as a person. She is fundamentally different from what she has been taught she should spiritually be.

There is no chapter of the Bible for her to go to reconcile her feelings/attraction to women as they manifest organically. As a matter of fact, her church forbids the actual physical action, but says nothing about how and why she is made to feel the way she does about women.

The Catholic faith has very distinct examples of how someone is to live their life. There is a saint named for almost every action/inaction/feeling or lack there of. In Stephen’s case, her faltering faith can be helped by her study of St. Thomas. Hall illustrates another version of the “everyman” or “every woman” through the very common struggle with belief. Even the most modern saint (I think she has been canonized), Mother Theresa admitted doubt.

But there is no example of a saint struggling with the very real human emotion of homosexuality. I am not saying homosexuality is wrong or something that needs to be fixed. I am saying that within Stephen’s faith, she has no where to turn for guidance with what she feels and who she is. Why wouldn’t someone struggle believing in a faith that claims and demands love for all but denies her very existence?

Kelsey Burroughs
January 18, 2017 9:28 pm

Hey Stephanie,

Just a quick comment from me, not to ruffle any feathers, though!

I was under the impression that for the majority of the 1800s and also earlier, England was mostly Protestant and seriously hated the Catholics. I thought this was part of the problem of the Irish Famine of that era. The upper classes of England and Ireland who were Protestant and didn’t suffer during famine years hated the Irish poor and blamed them for many problems of England and Ireland. Later Americans did the same when the Irish poor tried to immigrate to survive. They were hated partly because they were Catholic and partly because Protestantism believed in something called Divine Providence that saw pauperism as punishment from God). I thought that’s why Sir Thomas More (wrote Utopia and King Henry VIII didn’t get along as far back as the 1400s-1500s. Catholics wanted the Pope in power, so the monarchy saw Catholics as traitors because the royals were the leaders of England and the leaders of the Church. I could be wrong, because this could have absolutely changed by the late 1800s, sometime during Victoria’s reign.

Some info about Divine Providence and the elite of that time- https://kenanfellows.org/kfp-cp-sites/cp01/cp01/sites/kfp-cp-sites.localhost.com.cp01/files/LP3_BBC%20Irish%20Famine%20Article%20for%20Lab.pdf

Either way, you’re absolutely right there is definitely this sense of not fitting an “ideal” of religion and society that permeates the novel. Even from the start, with parts of her life outside of her own control, such as her name, how she was a “surprise” of sorts, and how she takes after her father and has a sometimes jealous mother. Later he skill in hunting and horseback riding continue this pattern and she recognizes that she doesn’t fit certain ideals that are expected of women.

Stephanie Lineberry
January 19, 2017 4:45 pm

Kelsey,

No ruffled feathers here(!) Yes, I agree there was religious turmoil within that era. That’s actually how the Protestant religion came about, “in protest” of Catholicism. If my memory serves, all Christian religions are versions of Catholicism, or more specifically, parts of Catholicism. Baptists from the teachings of John the Baptizer and so on.

Yes, I guess I could have been less specific and said Christianity in general as I was pointing out the Christian “blanket” with which Hall wrapped his story. But you get the general idea that the Christian religion that Stephen so wanted to live by gave her little support with what she was feeling and who she knew she was as a human being.

On a side note, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during King Henry VII’s reign. His twisting of position, leadership and religious rhetoric would have been a nice piece of drama to watch play out!

Stephen Poole
January 19, 2017 12:55 pm

Hi Stephanie,

By mentioning “the seven tenets of the Catholic faith”, you give us an interesting way to think about Hall’s novel. Not being Catholic, I had to google around to find what those tenets are. (I found this link on the “Seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching”, http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/seven-themes-of-catholic-social-teaching.cfm.) To the ones you point out, I would add two others that figure in the novel. One of these is “the dignity of work”. Puddle is key in promoting this value by encouraging Stephen’s vocation as a writer: “You’ve got work to do—come and do it!” (Hall 205). Another of the tenets is “Care for God’s Creation”, which comes into play in the fox hunt scene. Observing a fox in the throes of an agonizing death, Stephen vows there and then to “never hunt any more” (127).

Stephanie Lineberry
January 19, 2017 4:49 pm
Reply to  Stephen Poole

Stephen,

Yes, I think you are right and thanks for adding a link. I had made a note to do just that but posted my comment before I realized I had not added it.

Stephen Poole
January 19, 2017 12:02 pm

How/why does Radclyffe Hall use religion in the text? “Religion” yes, but (as others in this discussion have pointed out) specifically Roman Catholicism. Hall herself was a Catholic and there are several ways that she uses her religion in this novel. I would like to suggest two. One is that she borrows from the imagery and dramatis personae of the Christian bible. Anyone who cares to flex their English-Major gene can dwell on this. Morton is the Garden of Eden. But like the other Edens in the novel (Orotava [Hall 305] and the garden at 35 Rue Jacob), Morton is a precarious one. Even its name suggests death (“mort” is Latin for death). Sir Philip and Lady Anna are its Adam and Eve. Stephen is at various times in the novel aligned with Cain, Job, Christ, and the Christian martyr with whom she shares a name (434). Hall also borrows her religion’s paternalism. Just as God is regarded as the protector of humankind (“He alone can protect”, 281) and Sir Philip as the protector of Lady Anna (201), Stephen regards herself as protector of Mary (343). Stephen sees protection as a male function that she is obliged to serve in her relationships first with Angela Crossby (153) and later with Mary. Ultimately Stephen’s belief that she cannot serve that function adequately is one reason she yields to Martin in the “war” for Mary’s hand (425). Another way Hall uses her religion is to give legitimacy to “inversion”. In the world of the novel (and in the world in which the novel was written), contempt for “inverts” was based in part on the belief that inversion was “unnatural”. More than one character in the novel uses this word in reference to Stephen (e.g., 72). In response to this belief, Stephen/Hall offer… Read more »

Stephen Poole
January 19, 2017 4:40 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Price

Hi Tiffany,

It sounds like your underlying question is: What parallels can be drawn between the characters in the novel and figures from the Christian bible? For example, between Stephen and the Christian saint of the same name. Both are martyrs in the sense that they are prepared to make a sacrifice. Stephen is prepared to sacrifice her own happiness for Mary’s by letting her go live happily ever after with Martin Hallam. At least, I think this is what ValĂ©rie Seymour has in mind when she calls Stephen a martyr (Hall 434).

Is there also a parallel between Stephen and Eve? After all, both are banished from the garden (Morton in one case, Eden in the other) for having “sinned”. Eve’s sin was disobeying God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. What was Stephen’s “sin”? Here, there is a curious tie-in with Jagose, who makes the distinction between acts and identity. Religious proscriptions against homosexuality are based on the same distinction. That is, a religiously minded person, especially a conservative one, might say Stephen’s sin was not being an invert or having “inverted” impulses, but acting on those impulses.

Brandon Hardy
January 20, 2017 11:16 am

As others have noted, the ways in which Hall takes up religion in this novel serve to demonstrate historically the tensions between Christianity (and religion in a general sense) and homosexuality, as well as the troubles with reconciling the two. I will attempt to respond to Tiffany’s question more thematically since that aspect resonated with me the most. Stephen’s identification with and resistance to Jesus embodies the inner struggle not only to secure faith in a divine being but also coming to terms with “being” a way in isolation. Even from Stephen’s early affection for Collins, we see her (Stephen’s) miserable hunger, that “craving for religion,” manifest in a sense of closeted isolation and exile. She wants so badly to bear the pain of Collin’s maligned knee, to take up her burden, and through prayer, she comes to empathize with Christ’s martyrdom. In a sense, Jesus becomes both her confidant and her alter-ego.
Stephen takes ownership of that suffering willingly, hers as well as Collin’s, which I think shows how deeply her religious discourse informs the way she makes sense of her own identity: she rails again Jesus for being stubborn and greedy with his pain, yet she feels He should understand her; they are both, after all, misunderstood outcasts who are pushed to the periphery for their difference to other “normal” people. I believe Hall, from my scant knowledge of her background, uses this device to great effect because it illustrates, too, how one’s struggle with being homosexual collides with a struggle to have faith in one’s self, to not just find comfort in a greater power but to locate that source of empowerment within in even the bleakest of places, like Morton represents for Stephen.

Will Banks
Admin
January 23, 2017 7:51 pm
Reply to  Brandon Hardy

I think you make some good points here, especially when we recognize that St. Stephen in the Christian tradition was the first martyr for Christ, or is remembered as such …

Jayde Rice
January 20, 2017 6:52 pm

The religious aspect that stood out to me the most in the piece was how young Stephen wanted to be like Jesus for Collins: how she wished she could take on Collins’s pain to heal her. First, I would like to say that this is a comically melodramatic idea, but nonetheless, it stuck with me as I went on.

Never in my life have I been so religious as young Stephen, and I was born and raised southern Baptist. I choose, often, to try and identify an author within their work, and in seeing Stephen so religious, I also see Hall much the same. I don’t know if I would go so far as to analyze what the religious aspects of this book “mean” more than just to say: it is a reflection of who Stephen and Hall are. To both character and author, religion seems deeply and intrinsically important, and they cannot help but see the world through a religious lens.

I will save the fuller story for next week’s discussion of Maurice, as I feel it will be more relevant there. But even though I was not so religious as Stephen, I was quite religious as a child. I saw the world through that lens. And the book’s faults aside, it is accurate in its inclusion of this struggle: between personal religion and a sexuality that does not align with that religion.

Jayde Rice
January 21, 2017 1:27 pm
Reply to  Tiffany Price

I really look forward to seeing what your questions are for Maurice! And if no one talks about religion, then I’ll post about it in the catch-all.

As for how my upbringing aligned with The Well of Loneliness, it didn’t really. It was interesting comparing my own struggles with hers, but as I’ll discuss next week, my struggles more closely aligned with Clive’s in Maurice. Instead of fitting myself into a religious frame, I had more of a collision — religion and sexuality in something of a battle to the death. Hmm. I like that. I’ll use that in my post next week, too.

Will Banks
Admin
January 23, 2017 7:50 pm
Reply to  Jayde Rice

I’m not sure we can make this jump to Hall and her own sense of religion, but it seems to me that Hall certainly USES religion in the novel as a trope of some sort. With Stephen (again, I’m thinking here of St. Stephen from Catholic tradition, who was the first to be martyred for the cause of Christ), Hall borrows from Judeo-Christian theologies of martyrdom and suffering. Hall’s Stephen will be our prototypical invert, a martyr for same-sex love and for a new generation of misunderstood inverts. For those who feel oppressed by society around them, I suppose martyrdom makes sense. I guess I’ve seen so many young characters like Stephen in books, those who try to make sense of the world around them through adult lenses, that I don’t think of it as quite as melodramatic as you do, but I guess that’s one of the struggles: how do you write the first “lesbian” novel? Okay, there were other attempts … how do you write the first sympathetic lesbian novel? There wouldn’t really be a model out there of the genre … I suppose Hall does fall back on some gothic tropes, as well … hmm .. I’ll have to think about that more.

Victoria Allen
January 22, 2017 5:47 pm

Religion is an area of debate among many “inverts” in this novel. Valerie, for instance, is a self-professed pagan and does not quite understand the lure of religion. I think separating the idea of religion (the actual gathering at church and the precepts dictated by man) and spirituality may be a better way of evaluating this issue.

Normality is lauded by the church community—inverts are not celebrated or accepted by the religious community. However, the faith of characters, such as Stephen, place in God is part of the effort to seek recognition in the world. God created all, so, therefore, God created inverts. Inverts, then, must be part of nature and are natural—rather, it is man’s religious law that is unnatural. By the end of the novel, Stephen pleads directly to God, saying, “
we believe 
 We have not denied You; then rise up and defend us. 
Give us the right to our existence!” (Hall 399). Through divine intervention, Stephen seeks societal acceptance so that she will not have to give up Mary. While this aim is self-serving (she does not want to have to give up her love), she also does it for the other inverts. Unfortunately ( as we can see throughout history), societal change takes time, and does not operate on an individual’s clock.

Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. Wordsworth Classics, 2014.