Caught in the Middle: Homosexual Guilt, Liminality, and the role of the 'Novel of Identification' in Post-World War, Pre-Stonewall America

Goulet, 2019

Category: English Literature

Overall Rating

0.4/5 (3/35 pts)

This thesis provides a competent and insightful analysis of how specific novels... explore themes of identity, guilt, and community among homosexual men, using established literary theory.
Its value lies in its contribution to the historical and literary understanding of LGBTQ+ experience during this period.
However, it does not offer a unique, actionable path for modern research outside its specific domain of literary and cultural studies
nor does it contain any technical or methodological ideas waiting to be unlocked by current technology.

The core concepts (identity negotiation, liminality, internal/external pressures, the role of narrative) are well-established within literary criticism and social theory.
The application to specific texts within a defined historical period provides specific insights into that context.
The concept of a "novel of identification" vs. "support" novel might offer a nuanced perspective within literary analysis of this period
Its value lies in the detailed textual analysis and historical interpretation it provides for understanding LGBTQ+ identity formation in Post-WWII, Pre-Stonewall America through the lens of literature.

The paper heavily relies on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet (1985)... which has been extensively critiqued and built upon by subsequent generations of queer theorists.
Analyzing these novels primarily through Sedgwick's lens without engaging post-Sedgwickian critiques risks presenting a historically flattened or theoretically limited understanding of both the texts and the period.
This thesis likely faded into obscurity... because it appears to operate within a well-trodden academic space without introducing a sufficiently novel methodology, theoretical paradigm, or historical insight to warrant sustained attention.
It's highly probable that the central arguments and observations made in this thesis... have been thoroughly explored and surpassed by subsequent scholarship.

Ignore