such a compulsion is prefigured by a sense of the predestination of their actions.. In both texts this predestination, while unidentifiable to each of them, is textually constructed as t
Trang 1such a compulsion is prefigured by a sense of the predestination of their actions In both texts this predestination, while unidentifiable to each of them, is textually constructed as the direct influence of the social prohibi-tion against lesbianism Miriam identifies “something” at work both upon her and the situation, the strength of which overrides her own emotional ambivalence about her decision:
Something far away below any single, particular motive she could search out, had made the decision, was refusing to attend to this conscious conflict and was already regarding the event as current, even as past and accomplished This complete, independent response, whose motives were either undiscov-erable or non-existent, might be good or bad, but was irrevocable.54
In The Well, this predestination is figured as a kind of “dreaming” in which
Stephen cannot control her actions, though she is prompted by it through-out to complete them Her deep ambivalence at her own actions is dealt with through the assumption of another “self ” who carries out the “neces-sary” actions of handing Mary over to Martin:
In a kind of dream she perceived these things In a dream she now moved and had her being; scarcely conscious of whither this dream would lead, the while her every perception was quickened And this dream of hers was
immensely compelling, so that all that she did seemed clearly predestined; she could not have acted otherwise, nor could she have made a false step,
although dreaming
In obedience to the mighty but unseen will that had taken control of this vivid dreaming, she ceased to respond to the girl’s tenderness Ruthless
as the world itself she became (emphasis mine) (439)
This climactic sacrifice, the socially determined end to lesbian desire, prompts a crisis in both Stephen and Miriam about the inferiority of les-bian gender identity Both explore an anguish about their lack of status in comparison to men Stephen submits to the realization that whatever male role she may have attempted to play, protecting and providing for a number
of women from an early age—her mother, the housemaid Collins, the mar-ried Angela Crossby and finally her first lover, Mary—she cannot fulfill the promise she makes them She has attempted to assume a male role, but she
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