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witticasterOne in a series of lol-leslit-papers-for-Pelly. ♥ This was for Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, and it doesn't really have anything to do with narrative structure (which is the subject that kind of propelled me to post all these), but...complete set and et cetera. /o/ My point here was rather better summed up by a contemporary review of the novel by the Village Voice, alas. Molly Bolt is the lesbian Natty Bumppo, a lesbian Paul Bunyan: she's in the pattern of the larger-than-life American folk hero. If Brown wasn't such a crazyass old lady (no, seriously, I have video proof of this available if you want), I'd say that it was a specific decision to force open the mythos of American legendary figures to people who've up to now been excluded from the pantheon. As it is, I'll say that that's what it does, whether or not Brown consciously intended it.
Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle follows the transformation of Molly Bolt from impudent child to fiery adult woman, traveling from Pennsylvania to Florida to New York . Throughout her development, though, it is notable that Molly remains an outsider amongst her friends wherever she goes; she is the perpetual Other, never quite belonging in the same
In her childhood in rural Pennsylvania, Molly is the tomboy spitfire of Coffee Hollow, who prefers playing with her cousin, Leroy, and other boys to admittedly-smarmy girls like Cheryl Spiegelglass. (As a side note, Cheryl's surname translates to “mirrorglass,” and suggests to me both that she's Jewish in origin and also a reflection of everything a little girl should have been, by societal standards of the early 1950s.) When told by Cheryl that they have to play nurses, not doctors, Molly bristles: “I got to be the doctor because I'm the smart one and being a girl don't matter” (31). She has a difficult time relating to any of the women she knows, particularly her mother; the sole exception is her beloved Leota, with whom she shares both her first kiss and first attempts at sexual experimentation. After her family's move to Florida when she is eleven, Molly once again finds herself with friends, but they are never portrayed as being on equal footing. Carolyn and Connie are economically more privileged than Molly; they are also far more heteronormative. Though Molly eventually sleeps with Carolyn, it only leads to her “becoming more and more isolated” (109) from her peers.
Most telling, however, are her experiences while in college, both in Florida and in New York City. While Molly finds herself well-regarded in college at first, it is for a partial self; she may be a successful sorority pledge and an elected officer of her class, but her acceptance is based entirely on compulsory heterosexuality. When she begins a relationship with Faye, her roommate-cum-girlfriend at the University of Florida, she notes that “people on our hall weren't speaking to us anymore” (124). Because Molly refuses to deny her true self (“We fuck, if that's what you're after” (127)), she is kicked out of of her sorority and loses her scholarship to the school.
A wide swath of rejection awaits her in New York, where the only person who accepts Molly as she is without using her, Calvin, is inspired by her arrival to leave the city. After his exit, she is at odds with her surroundings, particularly amid the academics she befriends (and belovers, as it were); next to straight-talking Molly Bolt, Polina Bellantoni's thesis on “Babylonian underpants for Columbia University” (189), as well as her husband's fascination with “cataloging cows in nineteenth century French paintings” (190), is absurd to the point of sheer parody. Molly's preference for broader-mindedness carries over into the bedroom as well. While Polina laments Molly's lack of specific sexual fantasies, the reader (or this reader, anyway) cannot help but snicker at the particularities of Polina's: “we're both at the urinal in the Times Square subway station...and you look over and notice my cock and you say, 'That's a nice cock, big and juicy'” (202). And while she helps Polina play out her fantasies, Molly puts up with overt sexism from her film school classmates and a cold shoulder from the lesbian community in Greenwich Village.
The novel's close finds Molly standing on the brink of the unknown. A graduate of film school, she has few non-secretarial prospects for jobs, though her male classmates have found excellent positions. Having made some peace with her mother, she is just as determined to go out into the future and work until she gets what she wants as she is at the age of seven. It reinforces that, at its heart, Rubyfruit Jungle is about being one of a kind--about the aloneness that comes with uniqueness--and persevering despite that. Molly never loses heart, despite the fact that she never really fits in, either.
Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle follows the transformation of Molly Bolt from impudent child to fiery adult woman, traveling from Pennsylvania to Florida to New York . Throughout her development, though, it is notable that Molly remains an outsider amongst her friends wherever she goes; she is the perpetual Other, never quite belonging in the same
In her childhood in rural Pennsylvania, Molly is the tomboy spitfire of Coffee Hollow, who prefers playing with her cousin, Leroy, and other boys to admittedly-smarmy girls like Cheryl Spiegelglass. (As a side note, Cheryl's surname translates to “mirrorglass,” and suggests to me both that she's Jewish in origin and also a reflection of everything a little girl should have been, by societal standards of the early 1950s.) When told by Cheryl that they have to play nurses, not doctors, Molly bristles: “I got to be the doctor because I'm the smart one and being a girl don't matter” (31). She has a difficult time relating to any of the women she knows, particularly her mother; the sole exception is her beloved Leota, with whom she shares both her first kiss and first attempts at sexual experimentation. After her family's move to Florida when she is eleven, Molly once again finds herself with friends, but they are never portrayed as being on equal footing. Carolyn and Connie are economically more privileged than Molly; they are also far more heteronormative. Though Molly eventually sleeps with Carolyn, it only leads to her “becoming more and more isolated” (109) from her peers.
Most telling, however, are her experiences while in college, both in Florida and in New York City. While Molly finds herself well-regarded in college at first, it is for a partial self; she may be a successful sorority pledge and an elected officer of her class, but her acceptance is based entirely on compulsory heterosexuality. When she begins a relationship with Faye, her roommate-cum-girlfriend at the University of Florida, she notes that “people on our hall weren't speaking to us anymore” (124). Because Molly refuses to deny her true self (“We fuck, if that's what you're after” (127)), she is kicked out of of her sorority and loses her scholarship to the school.
A wide swath of rejection awaits her in New York, where the only person who accepts Molly as she is without using her, Calvin, is inspired by her arrival to leave the city. After his exit, she is at odds with her surroundings, particularly amid the academics she befriends (and belovers, as it were); next to straight-talking Molly Bolt, Polina Bellantoni's thesis on “Babylonian underpants for Columbia University” (189), as well as her husband's fascination with “cataloging cows in nineteenth century French paintings” (190), is absurd to the point of sheer parody. Molly's preference for broader-mindedness carries over into the bedroom as well. While Polina laments Molly's lack of specific sexual fantasies, the reader (or this reader, anyway) cannot help but snicker at the particularities of Polina's: “we're both at the urinal in the Times Square subway station...and you look over and notice my cock and you say, 'That's a nice cock, big and juicy'” (202). And while she helps Polina play out her fantasies, Molly puts up with overt sexism from her film school classmates and a cold shoulder from the lesbian community in Greenwich Village.
The novel's close finds Molly standing on the brink of the unknown. A graduate of film school, she has few non-secretarial prospects for jobs, though her male classmates have found excellent positions. Having made some peace with her mother, she is just as determined to go out into the future and work until she gets what she wants as she is at the age of seven. It reinforces that, at its heart, Rubyfruit Jungle is about being one of a kind--about the aloneness that comes with uniqueness--and persevering despite that. Molly never loses heart, despite the fact that she never really fits in, either.
