Domesticity and Masculinity in the Queer Spaces of D.H. Lawrence’s The Fox

Abstract

Although seemingly presenting a narrative of queer failure and heteronormative success, The Fox is rife with ambivalence, as is characteristic of Lawrence’s œuvre, and should not be read as evidence of homophobia. Far from presenting a happily ever after in its conversion of an independent queer woman into a tractable wife, the married couple’s future is troubled by the lack of a home: the denouement highlights how a shared space of their own remains intangibly on the horizon, pessimistically unknown and untested.In examining the novella and the 1967 film adaptation, this article argues for a queer reading of both pairings on the farm – a same-sex butch/femme relationship between Banford and March within the farmhouse, and a queer masc-for-masc relationship between Henry and March in its farmyard and outbuildings – facilitated by Lawrence’s refusal to see manhood as an exclusively male attribute.