“Lets turn our prayers
Into outrageous dares
And mark our page
In a future age”
“IN A FUTURE AGE,” WILCO
“Well time’s not what I belong to
And I’m not the season I’m in.”
“I’M NOT MY SEASON,” FLEET FOXES
Overview: For this piece, I was assigned “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall, published in 1928. Although I have read quite a bit of queer literature, I was not previously familiar with this book and read it as a first step in developing my concept.
The book follows the life of the protagonist, an AFAB person born in the late Victorian era to upper-class English parents. Having hoped for a boy, the parents name the child Stephen, and it is obvious from the beginning that Stephen is not going to conform to gendered expectations. As they grow older, it becomes clear that they not only “feel like a boy” but are attracted to women, neither of which are acceptable by society’s standards. Unknown to Stephen, their father had understood early on that they were not like other children and collected several books on the subject of homosexuality. Unfortuantely, the father dies when Stephen is barely an adult, having never told them that he had found an explanation for their “unnatural” predelictions.
Throughout the tortured chronicle of Stephen’s life, they repeatedly search for the happiness and acceptance enjoyed by “normal” society, but find this elusive. After thir father’s death, they begin dressing in masculine clothing and largely stop trying to perform femininity. However, they are rejected by their mother after an ill-fated affair with a married woman threatens scandal in their small English village, and move to London and then Paris to find a more welcoming community. Later, while serving in an ambulance unit during World War I, they meet and fall in love with a woman, Mary Llewellyn, and start a relationship that will continue after the war. Although it seems as if Stephen has finally found happiness, they are preoccupied with the certainty that they can never give Mary the life of peace and acceptance that she deserves and tricks her into breaking off their relationship to be with a man. As this story comes to a close, Stephen makes a final plea to God, “Give us also the right to our existence!”
At the time it was published, The Well of Loneliness was branded obscene and attempts were made to ban it, which backfired terrifically. Instead of stemming the tide of knowledge about queerness that had grown after the war, it became one of the most well-known pieces of lesbian literature of the era.
Statement & Intent: I’ll be honest with you, I found Stephen to be a rather unlikable protagonist and I was often uncomfortable with their opinions on class, race, and gender. They come off as a person with a martyr complex and although all of this is quite understandable in the context of when the book was written, it would be disingenuous to not point it out.
I went into reading this book without researching any criticism of it - modern or otherwise - and was not surprised to discover my views were shared by many others when I finished it. That said, there was one VERY obvious thing that jumped out at me as I read: if this person existed today, it would be surprising if they hadn’t at least questioned their gender identity. It was impossible not to recognize and empathize with many situations in the book, and although one can never presume to dictate another person’s experience - living or otherwise - it seemed very clear to me and apparently to many other modern readers. In one particularly evocative scene, child Stephen poses in front of a mirror, imagining themselves as Viscount Horatio Nelson, a British naval officer during the Napolonic Wars. They repeatedly talk about feeling like a boy/man thoughout the book, and describe a lot of things that we now recognize as gender dysphoria. As an AFAB trans-masculine person, this was a theme I could not ignore.
As I finished the book and considered what story I wanted to tell in my piece, I returned again and again to the prayer that closes the book. The author, Radclyffe Hall, was a devout Catholic, and I was particularly moved by the thought of them writing this impassioned plea to God, praying for a future where people like Stephen - and by extension themselves - could find the peace and happiness they so yearned for. Nearly a century later, isnt that the epitaph they deserve?
So, in my piece, I have imagined a world where Stephen’s prayers were answered. Instead of a lifelong pre-occupation with hopelessness and loneliness, they find a fulfilling life, and get to experience the full wonder and abandon of youth and love. Their story, made sacred by their faithful plea, is depicted in the stained glass window of a medieval church, much like one you can imagine Stephen would have attended in their small English village.
During the Victorian era in which Stephen would have existed, Gothic Revival was the predominant architectrual style. Therefore, I took inspiration from medieval church artitecture, illuminated manuscripts, and the flat figural style re-interpreted through a Victorian lens. Approaching this piece, you are at once captured by the scale of the stonework, and pulled in with its forced perspective. As you move closer to inspect the window panes, the sun streams in through the glass, framing these small intimate scenes in a golden glow. Casting a wider view on the piece from such a close proximity, you are transported to this imagined place of worship, held in its grand embrace.
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In A Future Age
Rhys Meatyard
48 x 36"
Mixed: Watercolor, Colored Pencil, Gouache, Acrylic |
