The treatment of gender in Nightwood, much like its treatment of language, is way ahead of its time. The restrictive yet broad nature of the symbolic functions to homogenize the majority, excluding the few who fail to function within its parameters, or “approximate the norm.” In fact, Barnes’ cynicism towards the reliability of language and her acknowledgement of the social regulation of identity give the novel surprisingly post-modern and post-structuralist themes. In spite of this inadequacy, Barnes acknowledges the defining and excluding powers of language. As the title of the novel’s first chapter suggests, the characters of Nightwood must “Bow Down” to the ‘unknowable’ and acquiesce to an existence between the lines, where language does not, and cannot, articulate.
What I am going to do is assert that viewing Nightwood merely as a “lesbian novel” (whatever that means) has its shortcomings, and that it may create a sort of tunnel-vision that disregards some of Barnes’ most compelling statements.īarnes’ goal throughout Nightwood is not to assert a solid and unwavering lesbian symbolic rather, Barnes explores the trials of those who fail to enter the symbolic (as a result of deviant gender or sexuality), and who feel that any attempt to do so is futile. But does that make it a lesbian novel? I’m not going to pretend that I have any grasp of the qualities that might make some kind of lesbian literary style or aesthetic, nor am I going to dwell on the age old preconception that if something has lesbians in it, it will be consumed by lesbians (why do we think The L Word was such a success?). While I can confirm that the novel does take some persistence, and that it is indeed modern, and that the foreword speaks for itself, I can’t quite wrap my head around why it is that Nightwood has become some kind of lesbian cult novel. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes’ 1936 novel, has quite the reputation it’s both a modernist and a lesbian classic, it’s notoriously difficult, and it comes with a commendation from Mr T.S.
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