Compulsory heterosexuality in the ‘coming out’ novel : a study of Sarah Waters’ ‘Tipping the velvet’ and Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Oranges are not the only fruit’

Abstract

This dissertation explores the concept of compulsory heterosexuality in Tipping the Velvet (1998) by Sarah Waters and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) by Jeanette Winterson. It examines how homosexual repression intersects with social factors, such as identity and gender relations, wealth, and social class, and examines how these factors maintain gender binaries and hierarchies, which in turn limit women’s power and freedom of choice. The first chapter examines compulsory heterosexuality in the twentieth century through an analysis of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. This discussion explores lesbian identity in a religious institution which enforces heteronormativity and considers homosexuality as a sin. The second chapter discusses same-sex relationships in Sarah Waters’ neo-Victorian novel Tipping the Velvet. Here, the dissertation explores how same-sex desire has historically been repressed through silence and denied existence, and how those who failed to adhere to compulsory heterosexuality were placed in the realms of sexual profit and stripped of their subjectivity. The third chapter brings the two novels together by discussing how, in achieving liberation, rigid social structures are challenged. The discussion of Waters’ text analyses Nancy’s act of cross-dressing in relation to Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. The discussion of Winterson’s novel analyses how through the weaving of fairy-tale narratives into the text the novel challenges the conventions of the Bildungsroman genre and defies literary categorizations. The purpose of this chapter is to show how in challenging compulsory heterosexuality, both novels subvert rigid social structures pertaining to sexuality and gender, but still ultimately fail to completely escape them.