More than a Lesbian Novel Essay

Anna Maria Moix is a Spanish apologueist, journalist, essay writer, poet and a translator. Julia is her first impudent which is an autobiographical novel. umpteen characters and incidents from this novel ar influenced by her life. The novel Julia is a very beautiful and thought provoking novel by Moix. It is called as a lesbian novel. agree to some critics, in Julia, the pedagogical scene of seduction is subverted by making it lesbian scene. Julias family with her teachers like Senorita Mabel and especially Eva is shown as lesbian eccentric person of relationship. While some critics oppose it by locateting forward the opposite opinion.According to them the relationship between Eva and Julia is much more than a lesbian bingle. The championship character in this novel embarks on a relationship with Eva, her writings teacher. though the novel suggests a sexual dimension to the relationship, it never makes the sexual dynamics patently clear, and Julia never becomes fully aware of her sexuality. For her, Eva represents mformer(a), friend, and delightr. 1 Thus critically it is described as a lesbian novel. It is because of the inclination of the fe masculine virtuoso towards Eva and some other women. Lesbian concept is non a new concept for the European writers.Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson and other many writers invite written on lesbian theory. Winterson Written on Body in this case is such an unusual novel in which the supposeers never recognize whether the narrator on whom the entire story is woven is male or female character. It might be perhaps because the female composes could not explain the lesbian theories openly due to the social constraints. Hence that she has indirectly put the theory of lesbianism Julia was produce after a great scrutiny because writing on lesbianism or homosexuality was a taboo in the society.Now on such background the question arises whether the novel Julia is really lesbian or it is astir(predicate) somethin g more. As per my observation, though it has the references of obsessive and intense relationship of the protagonist Julia with her books professor, it cannot be concluded that it is entirely a lesbian novel. In Julia Anna Moix has unfolded the gloomy and devastated life of the protagonist right from her tender eld to entire life. The author has attached more focus on the mental and psychosomatic condition of the protagonist Julia which appeals more than her lesbian tendency.According to Katharina Wilson it is a story of a self pestiferous adolescent psyche of a teenager. She states, Her first novel Julia (1970) though narrated in the third person is intensely subjective and intimate, drawing the reader immediately into the inner monologues of a tormented and self destructive adolescent psyche. Katharina Wilson in like manner writes, In exploring the dark world of divided self, obsessed by a lost take over from the prehistorical (the sixteen years old Julia), Moix also del icately alludes to the problem of sexual identity as it takes shape in the form of unconscious lesbianism.2 Though Julia was closelippedly attached with many women in her life she is not entitled lesbian. The circumstance in which Julia grows has to be taken into account. These circumstances compel her to attract towards women. She loves women not out of any attraction exactly because she hates men. Her cause about the men was very sickening. At the very tender age of six she was raped by Victor who was their family friend. And this was the reason that the repugnance for men developed in her mind and a strong and striking need for a female grew in her mind.In short Moix is persistent about explaining the inner mind of Julia. Julia, the novel published in 1970, describes about typical teenager four-year-old college girl. Julia, who is in love with her literature professor Eva and decides to commit suicide out of the nervous breakdown when she comes to know that she cannot keep ro mantic relationship with her female partner due to social slaveholding and threats,. Eva for Julia is more than just a sexual partner. For her she is like a mother and in her l aceliness she just necessitates Eva to be with her. She only wanted to be close to Eva. She wanted her presence and nothing else. 3The story arrays with the protagonist mental condition when she is there in the hospital lonely and totally broken hearted. Here the author has vividly depicted each and every facets of the complex mind of the protagonist. Why she has been called as a lesbian, just because she has intense love in her mind for a female figure? This is not the only reason. The subterranean raison detre is that she wants a female figure under whose shelter she can be safe and secure. She cannot strike the security and safety in the arms of any man, because for her man is just like a wolf who has crunched into her body as well as mind.Her puerility was a like a nightmare for her because of the v ery unfortunate experience of the rape. This is the reason why Julia wanted to keep herself far outside(a) from the men. Her relationship with Eva is then dignified by the author which according to her not unusual and wrong. Julias mother was never close to her and she wants to experience the real love of the mother and for that she has chosen Eva, who is her mother in her imaginations Eva is for Julia a mother, a sister and a friend. There is an attempt to explain away lesbianism not as desiring women, but as care of men. 3Here I would like to refer the story by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Anderson, The Little Match Girl, who was shivering and almost dead because of smart and cold. At that time for getting herself warm she lit a stick from her matchbox and the small and tiny light of the little stick gives her hundreds of beautiful dreams from which she doesnt want to come out. Evas presence for Julia is like a warm in the deadly winter. Eva is like an Oasis in the deserted life of Julia. But Evas presence is nothing but a hallucination. Eva is like a lighthouse for the ship of Julias life.When she realizes that this lighthouse is collapsed she cannot survive herself and then she decides to end her life. Over a course of a sleepless night the 20-year-old Julia recollects instances from her past as she lies in a hospital bed following a suicide attempt. Her intense forcible aversion to men and recurrent obsession with a series of strong female figures would seem to stem from traumatic childhood experiences, including her rape at the age of 6 by a family friend and the emotional deprivation felt in the relationship with her mother. 4 From Julia the author brings forward her opinion that the lesbians are not women who love women but who hate men. Rather than calling this novel as a lesbian novel we can say that it is the novel depicts the rebellious attitude of the women who have been for years and years tormented by the patriarchal and male dom inated society. This novel is also called a novel of relationship. Rather the theme of relationship ceaselessly remains dominant rather than the lesbianism. Moix reveals the different ridges of relationship in it.The author has outspread the different types of relationships of the protagonist right from her childhood, her relationship with her family members, the deteriorated relationship between her and her mother, the goal of her beloved brother Rafael, her relationship with her older brother Ernesto, Every where we find the blemished relationship. In the crowd of the people the Julia seems to be alone and isolated. The failure in maintaining the relationship can cause the mental and psychological damage of the person.Anna Moix tries to show the complexities of the relationship as well as the lack of harmony among all the characters. The novel represents such society where the family system is collapsed. This novel is the symbol of the society which has lost the family values a nd morality. The characters are shown self c raiseed and no one seems to bother about the rest of the members of the society. Relationship is lacking with every character. Julia is searching for the love in the female figures. She has to search it from the outside world because she is not finding it in her family members.The relationship of Julia with her mother which ought to be very close, and there aught to be a natural attachment and affection between mother and daughter is in domain very stained. Her mother is shown as a self concentrate on who never tries to know what exactly her daughter expects, and what exactly her responsibility towards her daughter. We strongly feel it when we read the scene of rape done on Julia by the Victor. At that time she necessarily her Mamas tender touch and her love and solace but she was abdicated ruthlessly by her mother. She would escape from Victor and run to mama, who was talking and laughing nonstop, ignoring her.Little Julia would tap h er on the arms, and Mama would ask Do you want a coke? No. And she would keep on touching Mama until, irritated, she would yell at her or slap her, and little Julia burst into tears. Aurelia Mama called put her to bed, she is unbearable. 5She needs love, pampering from her mother which is her Psychological and quite natural need. But this basic need is also never fulfilled by her mother. She knows that she is a big issue for her mother and this feeling creates more and more insecurity in her mind. This pampering she is searching in another woman.In Julia the author also focuses on the developing materialism in the society. Everybody is involved in gaining the worldly pleasure. Everybody is careless and is not in position to think of the other. Julias brother is a homosexual. There is total miscommunication between the relationships of Julias parents. Everybody has chosen their own path life in which they dont want to involve other family members. Under the roof of one house the y are living like strangers. They dont want to share their happiness, their sorrow with the others. Why life has become so difficult for the protagonist? Why does she want to escape from her present?Why cant she accept the present bravely? Why does she prefer to stay in her past life? These are very important questions arise while the reading of the novel. Julia is not a novel which just propounds the theory of lesbianism but it is the psychological novel which focuses on the mental condition of the protagonist. The protagonist is caught by the split personality. Young Julia is not ready to accept the fact of her being young and she wants to be in the past. The incident of rape has been carved on her mind so intensely that she prefers to live the life of listlessness and detachment. She prefers to live an isolated life.As her remembrances peel away the layers of her past, she reveals chilling details of a life filled with alienation and unhappiness. 6 This is the reason why she cann ot face the relationship with the opposite sex. The horror experience becomes her inability to enter into the relationship with opposite sex. When Carol kisses her she feels it as a nightmare and it reminds r the incident of her violent rape. a beach, rocks, a sea urchin, the paddle boat go on the sea. (Page 209, Julia) There is a constant conflict in her mind, the conflict of two different personalities, Julia and Julita.Julita is her past which is being more and more dominated. Her schizophrenic experience eventually leads to an unsuccessful suicide attempt. According to German Bleiberg The novel is relentless psychological whodunit, narrated as the interior monologue of the disturbed and intermittently suicidal young protagonist. 7 The novel consists of the series of memory of Julias life right from her childhood to the present day. These memories carry from her childhood to her present traumatic psychological stagnation. 8 Julia has locked herself in thick-skulled pains. He r pains are like a web which the protagonist fails to break.Her story is necessarily thought from psychological point of view. When we start thinking from that perception we realize that this is not just a lesbian novel. It is a deep and thorough study of human psyche. And when we change the angle of our thoughts and starts thinking from the point of view of the protagonist, we start feeling sympathetic about the protagonist. The entire novel seems to be haunted by a weird silence. A voiceless ness is spread more or less the protagonist. She is completely fed up of all types of relationships and the people that she wants to stay alone. She rather feels safe in her loneliness.That is why when she arrives in the city she feels as if she is captured in the cage. The noise, continuous movement of cars and buses, and the sight of so many people in the streets made her feel dizzy. 9 Julia was blamed by the other school children for being silent and for not mixing with anybody. She found herself forced to stay locked up in the classroom for four hours in the morning and three in the afternoon, sitting behind a desk, among twenty other girls. She didnt talk to anybody. If they asked her something, she answered with a fewest possible words. After a week at School, they called her the girl who doesnt talk.10 Thus patently it seems a lesbian novel but if we consider the other factors of this novel we realize that the story has a depth and it wants to tell us something else and lesbianism is just one of the parts of the novel. Thus this novel focuses many factors such as a world of chaos and anarchy, the broken frame of the family structure, the voiceless ness, materialism and self centered attitude of the modern society, lack of communication between the human beings, the physical and psychological exploitation of the women by the society and the spoiled human relationships.This novel also reveals the psychological problems which arise due to the loneliness insecurity and individualism. Being a typical feminist novel it throws the light on various above factors which are more dominating than the lesbian theme. Sources 1 (Page 4, Spanish Literature, glbtq literature, http//www. glbtq. com/literature/spanish_lit,4. html) 2 (Page 853, An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers, by Katharina M. Wilson, Published by Tailor & Francis)3 (Page 4, Julia, Anna Moix, Sandra Kingery , published by University of Nebraska Press, 2004) 3 (Page 287, Whos who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, By Robert Aldrich, Garry, Published by Routledge, 2001) 4 (Page 199, A New History of Spanish Writing by Christopher Perriam, published by Oxford University Press. ) 5(Page 41, Julia, Written by Anna Moix, translated by Sandra Kingery, University of Nebraska Press, 2004) 6(Page 140, Dangerous Virtues, By Ana Maria Moix, Margaret E. W. Jones, published by University of Nebraska Press, 1997) 7(Page1107, L-Z, by German Bleiberg, published by Greenwood Publishing Group . ) 8 (Page 37, Queer Transitions in Contemporary Spanish Culture, By Gema Perez-Sanchez, published by Suny Press. ) 9 (Page93, Julia Written by Anna Moix, translated by Sandra Kingery, University of Nebraska Press, 2004) 10 (Page93, Julia Written by Anna Moix, translated by Sandra Kingery, University of Nebraska Press, 2004)