The author argues that sex is “a topic Jackson avoided,”
//EYEROLL Yyyyyeah no. I've seen this argued elsewhere about Jackson, and it's really kind of puzzling. There's a similar weird take on queerness in her books. I think, like so much else about her work, it's kind of liminal, and people don't know how to categorize her, because she wasn't about separate categories at all.
Re Eleanor, she's so isolated and alienated, but has she really ever been alone in her life? She was stuck with her mother and I don't think she ever went to college, then she nursed her dying mother, then she has a literal cot at her sister's or something. And even at Hill House she's sharing with Theodora. And the big moment with the house is when she 'agrees' desperately to join it, that it can take her -- even right at the very end, she thinks "I am doing this, me, all by myself," which is very questionable. People always want something from her that she can't give, or she never measures up. True happy solitude could definitely linger as a dream.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-12-05 03:36 pm (UTC)//EYEROLL Yyyyyeah no. I've seen this argued elsewhere about Jackson, and it's really kind of puzzling. There's a similar weird take on queerness in her books. I think, like so much else about her work, it's kind of liminal, and people don't know how to categorize her, because she wasn't about separate categories at all.
Re Eleanor, she's so isolated and alienated, but has she really ever been alone in her life? She was stuck with her mother and I don't think she ever went to college, then she nursed her dying mother, then she has a literal cot at her sister's or something. And even at Hill House she's sharing with Theodora. And the big moment with the house is when she 'agrees' desperately to join it, that it can take her -- even right at the very end, she thinks "I am doing this, me, all by myself," which is very questionable. People always want something from her that she can't give, or she never measures up. True happy solitude could definitely linger as a dream.