Same-Gender Relationships in Fiction

Abstract

One aspect of gender inequality and power relations between men and women that existed in the nineteenth century concerned sexuality. This chapter discusses the changing attitudes toward same-sex relationships and looks at some strategies used in presenting domesticity, love, and romantic relationships in fictional works of women who lived in same-gender relationships. The two installments of Cleveland’s short story “Robin Adair,” which is one of the turn-of-the-century narratives that introduced same-gender relationships, appeared in an extremely proper ladies’ publication, the Godey’s Lady’s Book, in 1887. In her radical, empowering, story of a woman who loved another woman Rose Cleveland elaborated new social codes and rejected the conventional, limiting gender expectations. Her story proposed tolerance toward alternative ways of experiencing relationships, those that moved beyond patriarchal parameters and definitions classifying normalcy.