GENDER AND SEXUALITY AS MODI OF LONELINESS IN CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD’S “THE WORLD IN THE EVENING”

Abstract

The paper offers an insight into the functioning of the phenomenon of loneliness in Christopher Isherwood’s “The World in the Evening”. Despite the text being dismissed as a failure by the writer himself, some scholars note its innovative treatment of gender and sexuality. The fact that psychological and sociological research often lists sex, gender, and sexual orientation as most frequent causes for loneliness, as well as the author’s peculiar interest in the depiction of the marginalised and alienated allow for a reading of the novel through the lens of identity studies. The paper’s focus is on understanding of gender as a social construct and a performative category. The protagonist’s self is developed, transformed, and readjusted under the influence of female characters, and this situation contrasts with the androcentric homodiegetic narration.  With his very masculinity questioned, under the pressure of societal expectations to perform a certain gendered role, the protagonist experiences an identity crisis and feels lonely in all of his relationships. He avoids taking responsibility for his own life, constantly seeking some sort of validation or guidance from the women around him and becoming childish and deliberately cruel towards others when he gets none. The sexual aspect of identity is analysed within the framework of queer theory. The protagonist’s bisexuality is treated by Isherwood as a somewhat neurotic condition arising from the clash between heteronormativity and ‘perverse’ homosexual desire. It is opposed to another part of the queer sexuality spectrum represented by two gay male characters successfully building a harmonious relationship. This image of the homosexual not as a deviation but rather an integral part of society is further reinforced by the alternative models of masculinity, those of gay men not only accepting their sexuality but willing to fight both for their country in the Second World War and their right to existence in the heteronormative world.