Beebo Brinker

The order of magnitude in which the Beebo Brinker series found its home during the former(a) 1950s and early 1960s was an desolate one. musical composition homosexuality was nonhing sassy in the world at large, it had most completely been repressed, especially in a Western cultured world that was not only steeped in Christian tradition, except excessively notably patriarchal.A masculine char fair sex was called a tomboy, and she was expected to curb her tomboyish attitudes in time for marriage and child-rearing. companionable expectations consigned her to petticoats, which in the sixties had been downgraded to coifes and stockings.However, the longings of the adult female to dress as comfortably as a man and perform the uses that were traditionally devoted to men were repressed during that time. While the desires of the adult female to fall in more freedom were repressed, each homosexual tendency was crushed violently. While the violence of lesbian repression might not pay off been overtly performed, all the women (lesbian or not) were aware of the intense pressure put together on anyone who held those feelings or performed those actions.Ann Bannon describes her own slimy experience during that time and the suicidal feelings that inescapably accompanied the tendency toward lesbianism in the 1960s. She writes that dapple being in a human being bar in the evenings, she would have extreme fair of it being raided and of herself being taken to jail. She continues I had been extremely low profile, real proper, very Victorian wife I thought, Well, that would do it. Id have to go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. As easy as it might be if you were a young woman in todays generation to find that was exaggerating, it wasnt.It was terrifying (Lootens, 1983, p. 12). The fear that society stir in the lives of lesbians drove them to down the stairsground haunts and concealed lifestyles that marginalized their existence in American society. This marginalization drove lesbians to the cities where people were much little concerned with the business of opposites as compared with downcast towns. In the Beebo Brinker chronicles, the big city cite is Greenwich Village, and the life that Beebo leads after she finds the courage to acquire out to her gay roommate is mathematical only in that city.She uses the facilities that the relative anonymity of the city grants to lesbiansgay and lesbian forbid and apartment life, and this assists the unleashing of her hidden desire for other women. The promiscuity that is possible even to heterosexuals under the blanket of city life is in any case granted to Beebo, and she begins a masculine disposition playing the fibre of the male in many another(prenominal) short lesbian affairs. This butch/femme role is highlighted in the novels written by Ann Bannon, and Beebo falls staunchly into the butch role.She is depict as being one who sits at the bar and lights up a cigarette, plac e out the match to another woman expecting her to blow it out. This overpoweringly masculine role goes beyond the level of mere self-discovery into an assuredly male persona. Beebo (and others like her) are shown to have performed the search that many lesbian women must(prenominal) do, and have found and realized her deepest desire to act in that domineering room toward women. In fact, this emphasizes the desire that these women have to for the womanish bodynot to be womanly but to command the sexual sack out of the feminine woman.This concept of the butch/femme role is, however, a stereotypical one, as many homosexual women find elements of both types at heart their characters and personalities. This fact highlights the embosss that have been propagated concerning lesbianism. Beebo Brinker does serve to facilitate some stereotypes that were cast concerning lesbians. The butch/femme stereotype is one of the major ones upheld in the series. The re-release of the books highlight s this stereotype, as Beebo is portrayed as a ravishing yet muscular and domineering woman even on the cover.The cartoon-like nature of the catch (which enables the caricature) further serves the purpose of the stereotype. Yet, the book also depicts the nature of the woman who was confined to existing a closeted lifestyle. The fears, frustrations and anxieties Bannon depicts blow overs the stereotypical evil and satanic creatures that homosexuals were taken for in that society. It depicted them as human beings who suffered on account of the feelings they had, and the feelings that society had toward them.In this way, the novels attacked some of the negative stereotypes that society had of lesbians. The literary form of the novels falls into the category of common fiction. These have been compared to the Harlequin and Mills & present romances that many consider trite and sentimental. However, the feelings and problems dealt with (however tersely) in Bannons books were never as nice as those in novels expressing heterosexual love. The characters in Bannon books were often forced to relinquish the loves that they sought after and return to the oppression of traditional life.Even in the Beebo Brinker tales (where lesbianism was more embraced by the title character), lesbians were never able to rid themselves of a social stigma that would oppress them regardless of their winner in finding happiness in love. These complexities of life are revealed in the Beebo Brinker novels, and this allows them to transcend the level of the trash novel and to become a historical artifact. Works Cited Bannon, Ann. Beebo Brinker. San Francisco Cleis Press, 2001. Lootens, Tricia. Ann Bannon A Writer of Lost Lesbian fictionalization Finds Herself and Her Public. Off Our Backs. Vol. 13, Iss. 11, 1983.