Rebecca K. Hahn - Side-Stepping Normativity in Selected Short Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner

On the one hand, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act makes homosexual acts lawful, but on the other, it creates a homosexual subject with a clearly recognisable political identity. As a result, it essentially aligns all non-heterosexual male subjects to a norm, and, by default, creates new permissible and non-permissible desires. This is one of Matt Houlbrook’s main criticisms of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. Houlbrook notes that “[…] the ‘homosexual’ was constituted through and within broader matrices of sexual differences, defined through his distance from places, practices, and people repudiated as abject, immoral, and dangerous” (Houlbrook 243, my emphasis). Houlbrook also points out that the Sexual Offences Act excludes men whose desires deviate from the new norm. He mentions “the effeminate quean, the man driven by uncontrollable lust into the city’s abject public spaces, the workingman moving between male and female partners, the pedophile” and insists that “[…] the victory of 1957 and 1967 was achieved precisely because it deliberately excluded those unable to fulfil the requirements of respectability” (243, emphasis in the original). That is, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act effectively creates the “normal” homosexual man with “normal” desires.

At first glance, it may seem as if Warner was alluding to the Sexual Offences Act to sanction Gibbie and Bruno’s relationship. However, in an almost comical way, “Bruno” presents the 1967 Sexual Offences Act as an unwanted intrusion into people’s private lives: “After putting the car in the garage, Bruno sat with his head in his hands, thinking about luncheons at the Eblis Hotel and cursing the Wolfenden Committee as a gang of interfering old busybodies” (76). Here it transpires that “Bruno” does not celebrate the new juridical developments as a step towards equality, but considers them a further means of regulating people’s behaviour.

“Queer uses of time and space”, writes Halberstam, “develop, at least in part, in opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction” ( Queer Time 1). This use of time and space entails a refusal to engage in any future-oriented forms of behaviour. Halberstam maintains that

[…] in Western cultures, we chart the emergence of the adult from the dangerous and unruly period of adolescence as a desired process of maturation; and we create longevity as the most desirable future, applaud the pursuit of long life (under all circumstances), and pathologize modes of living that show little or no concern for longevity. Within the life cycle of the Western human subject, long periods of stability are considered to be desirable, and people who live in rapid bursts (drug addicts, for example) are characterized as immature and even dangerous. (4–5)

Halberstam wrote this in 2005, thirty-four years after the publication of “Bruno”. However, her analysis of the way in which people live in a queer time and space and the way in which society regards people who deviate from the so-called norm proves to be true for the time during which “Bruno” was published.

While his mother was still alive, Gibbie constantly failed to meet her expectations. He always seemed to be doing the wrong thing at the wrong time: “His good intentions went awry, his good ideas were inapplicable, his consolations were inappropriate, his jokes fell flat” (65). Gibbie resorted to alcohol to endure the pressure of his surroundings, and especially the pressure put upon him by his mother: “He [Gibbie] did not drink more than a Scottish landowner or a retired warrior might do unblamed, and it made his relations with his mother considerably easier” (66). The statement has an almost mocking tone. It contains two negatives to make an affirmative sentence (“he did not drink more”, “unblamed”). This, of course, has the opposite effect: the reader gathers that Gibbie consumed alcohol regularly and in considerable quantities. The narrator further compares Gibbie to a landowner and a retired warrior. Both roles, “landowner” and “war hero”, are generally considered to be respectable roles which the young Gibbie was unable to fulfil.

In the eyes of Mrs Brodie, one of Gibbie’s main shortcomings is his indifference towards marriage and children. Using the example of Mrs Brodie, “Bruno” makes fun of the heteronormative logic that compels humans to generate offspring, that is, “the norm that tries to exclude any desire outside a procreative sexuality” (Kling 40). In Mrs Brodie’s world, Gibbie needs to produce an heir. His purchase of a motorcar restores her faith in his masculinity: “In the spring he [Gibbie] bought a car. It was called a Trojan, and had solid tires. It was after this assertion of manliness that Mrs Brodie decided it was her duty to become a grandmother” (Warner, “Bruno” 66). Mrs Brodie, after her belief in Gibbie’s masculinity has been restored, considers children to be the next step in Gibbie’s life. Mrs Brodie follows a heteronormative logic of succession. Now that Gibbie is a “man”, he must produce an heir to enable her to take on the role of grandmother to future offspring who, in turn, will take over the running of the estate. Gibbie, however, does not buy the car because he feels insecure about his masculinity, but to enjoy his independence. He fails to understand that the purchase of the car symbolises something completely different to his mother than it does to him. Ironically, he buys a car from a manufacturer called “Trojan”, a name that, if we think of the Trojan horse, immediately suggests false pretences. While Gibbie’s mother believes that the car will make her son more of a ‘man’, Gibbie eventually uses it to escape from his mother and designated wife to begin a new, queer life in London. By introducing the topic of the car, the story skilfully connects heteronormative desires with capitalist possessions. In this context, babies and cars are synonymous. While Mrs Brodie is entrenched in the system, Gibbie regards it with laconic indifference.

Gibbie’s attitude towards the system that rewards reproduction and the pursuit of material possessions resembles his attitude to the system that prioritises beauty and health. Years later, after his mother has long passed away, he meets Bruno. Gibbie’s attitude towards his body has not changed and stands in stark contrast to that of his lover:

When they [Bruno and Gibbie] first took up together he [Bruno] had really done a lot for Gibbie, who was in a shocking state. Lambswool for his hammertoes, slippery elm for his stomach pains, valerian for his hangovers – Bruno, whose health was flawless, was a great believer in nursery physic. Gibbie became a believer too, but lost his faith after syrup of figs. (69)

As Gibbie’s health deteriorates, Bruno installs himself as Gibbie’s carer. He finds it appalling that Gibbie has neglected his health to such a degree; he immediately notices that Gibbie’s toes are bent, that his stomach aches from gorging himself with food, and that he has a constant hangover from alcohol abuse. Bruno is driven by the desire to remedy Gibbie’s condition. He shames Gibbie for not paying attention to his health and prescribes medication that he believes will cure his illnesses. By taking care of Gibbie’s body, he seeks to render himself indispensable to Gibbie and, accordingly, demonstrate his power over him. Gibbie, however, is fickle and inconsistent. For a short period of time, he gives into Bruno and allows him to take control of his life. In the end, a laxative, the “syrup of figs”, foils Bruno’s attempts at restoring Gibbie’s health. The reader learns that Gibbie dislikes letting go of any of his old habits as much as he dislikes forcibly discharging his faeces.