CENTURY LITERATURE A Dissertation by JUNG SUN ... - Repository

queer little Jane sees that she is dependent and must prepare herself to be independent;
she must be self-sufficient, supporting herself through her labor. After eight years of
education and teaching work at Lowood, Jane concludes that what she can have is
“servitude” even though she desires “liberty” (102). Jane says to herself, not loudly, that
she will choose “servitude,” because “it does not sound too sweet. It is not like such
words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly, but no more than
sounds for me, and so hollow and fleeting that is mere waste of time to listen to them”
(102). Jane chooses or rather accepts the opposite path to becoming independent. Her
decision seems to tell us that she would survive in the face of adversity even though she
needs to choose “servitude” instead of “liberty.” Jane’s marginality, which is constituted
by economic destitution, being disowned by the world, and disconnection from the idea
of sweetness, is queered because Jane can feel a sense of comfort in spite of being
marginal (102), which makes her subjectivity non-categorizable, indeterminate, and
queer. Defining Jane’s marginal subjectivity as the manifestation of her queerness,
chapter four explores the ways in which marginal subjects are categorized by some terms,
including “queer,” that indicate the intention of insult and critique, and they find a way
of prevailing through embracing the categorization.
My focus on the Victorian uses of the word “queer” aims to understand the
marginal subjectivity of the Other represented in nineteenth-century literature and
culture. In analyzing what constitutes the category of the Other, critical readings tend to
map out the binary oppositional relation between the dominant and the dominated and
the oppressor and the oppressed. In other words, the dominant group can and will
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