Beebo Brinker

The society in which the Beebo Brinker series found its home during the recently 1950s and early 1960s was an inhospitable one. While homosexuality was zip fastener new in the world at large, it had almost completely been repressed, particularly in a Western cultured world that was not tho steeped in Christian tradition, but also notably patriarchal.A masculine charr was called a tomboy, and she was expected to curb her tomboyish attitudes in time for union and child-rearing. Societal expectations consigned her to petticoats, which in the sixties had been downgraded to dresses and stockings.However, the desires of the cleaning woman to dress as well as a man and perform the use of goods and servicess that were traditionally given to men were repressed during that time. While the desires of the woman to decl be more freedom were repressed, both homosexual tendency was crushed violently. While the violence of lesbian repression efficacy not have been overtly performed, all the women (lesbian or not) were aware of the aggravated pressure put on anyone who held those feelings or performed those actions.Ann Bannon describes her own wretched acknowledge during that time and the suicidal feelings that necessarily accompanied the tendency toward lesbianism in the 1960s. She writes that succession being in a ethereal 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 passing low profile, very 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 think that was exaggerating, it wasnt.It was terrifying (Lootens, 1983, p. 12). The consternation that society inspired in the lives of lesbians drove them to underground haunts and secret sprightlinessstyles that marginalized their cosmos in American society. This marginalization drove lesbians to the cities where people were much little concerned with the business of approximately others as compared with small towns. In the Beebo Brinker chronicles, the big urban center referenced is Greenwich Village, and the life that Beebo leads after she finds the courage to come out to her gay roommate is possible only in that metropolis.She uses the facilities that the relative anonymity of the city grants to lesbiansgay and lesbian bars and apartment life, and this facilitates the unleashing of her hidden desire for other women. The promiscuity that is possible even to heterosexuals under the blanket of city life is also granted to Beebo, and she becomes a butch character playing the government agency of the male person in many 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 exposit as being one who sits at the bar and lights up a cigarette, holding out the match to another woman expectin g her to blow it out. This irresistibly 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 hector manner toward women. In fact, this emphasizes the desire that these women have to for the effeminate bodynot to be feminine but to command the sexual love 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 within their characters and personalities. This fact highlights the stereotypes that have been propagated concerning lesbianism. Beebo Brinker does go 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 highlights this stereotype, as Beebo is portrayed as a be autiful soon enough muscular and domineering woman even on the cover.The cartoon-like nature of the panorama (which enables the caricature) further serves the purpose of the stereotype. Yet, the book also depicts the nature of the woman who was bound to living a closeted lifestyle. The fears, frustrations and anxieties Bannon depicts transcends 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 universal fiction. These have been compared to the Harlequin and Mills & Boon romances that many consider stock(prenominal) and sentimental. However, the feelings and problems dealt with (however tersely) in Bannons books were neer as tidy as those in novels express ing heterosexual love. The characters in Bannon books were often forced to relinquish the loves that they desired and apply 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 disregarding of their success 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 simile Finds Herself and Her Public. Off Our Backs. Vol. 13, Iss. 11, 1983.