TIPPING THE VELVET: SPECULARISED SEXUALITIES IN THE VICTORIAN ERA

Sarah Waters’ first novel Tipping the Velvet (1998) is a neo-Victorian novel that rewrites the Victorian era to depict the marginalised existence of the female same-sex lovers. Since Waters fictionalises the historical facts, her representations turn out to be the reality of her novel in which facts and imaginary notions blurred. In this article, Waters’ construction of an alternative lesbian history of the Victorian period in London will be evaluated by the constructions of femininity in the Victorian period. Then, the tendency of excluding sexuality and desire by ignoring their existence in Victorian times will be scrutinised by showing sexual interactions of lesbian lovers. In the novel, Waters creates a counter-discourse of lesbians who try to become visible at the centre. By creating different social circles and classes among queer people in Victorian times, Waters both achieves to avoid the stereotyping the lesbians and adds a credibility to their existence.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Sarah Waters, queer, neo-Victorian

PDF

___

Aronoff, J. (2007). "Competitive Drag Kings Strut Stuff: With some spit and polish, women perform in growing world of cross-dressing pageantry", South Carolina: The University of South Carolina Daily Gamecock, 7-29. Retrieved July 29, 2007, from http://media.www.dailygamecock.com/media/storage/paper247/news/2005/10/19/TheMix/Competitive.Drag.Kings.Strut.Stuff-1025370.shtml.
Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity, Routledge, New York.
Foucault, M. (1984) The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, (Trans: Robert Hurley), Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Halperin, D. M. (1994). “Historicising the Subject of Desire: Sexual Preferences and Erotic Identities in the Pseudo-Lucianic Erotes”, Foucault and the Writing of History, (Ed. David M. Halperin), Blackwell, Cambridge, pp: 19-34.
Hutcheon, L. (1988). A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, Routledge, New York.
Hutcheon, L. (1989). The Politics of Postmodernism, Routledge, New York.
Jeremiah, E. (2007). “'The “I” inside “her”': Queer Narration in Sarah Waters's Tipping the Velvet and Wesley Stace's Misfortune”, Women: a Cultural Review, 18/2, pp: 131-144.
Gross, E. (2010). “Irigaray and Sexual Difference”, Australian Feminist Studies, ½, pp: 63-77.
King, J. (2005). The Victorian Woman in Question in Contemporary Feminist Fiction, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Koolen, M. (2010). “Historical Fiction and the Revaluing of Historical Continuity in Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet”, Contemporary Literature, 51/2, pp. 371- 397.
Morrison, J. (2003). Contemporary Fiction. London: Routledge.
Madsen, L.H. (2012). “Lesbian Desire and Mainstream Media: Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet on the Screen”. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from http://ual.es/odisea/Odisea11_Madsen.pdf .
Rabinow, P.,ed. (1984). The Foucault Reader, Pantheon Books, New York.
Waters, S. (1998). Tipping the Velvet, Riverhead Books, New York.