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Essay On The Well Of Loneliness And Anne Lister

Decent Essays

“The Well of Loneliness” and “Anne Lister’s Diary” are two readings about lesbians in different periods in history. In the 1800s, homosexuality was nonexistent so Anne Lister felt unique and did not face any evident negativity. On the other hand, Stephen Gordon’s period was exposed to homosexuality and had a negative view of it. Thus, leading to Stephen receiving negativity for her identity. Firstly, Stephen Gordon’s family had a negative vision on non-normative identities and expressed it to her while Anne Lister’s family never indicated any thought on it. Secondly, discrimination became more common in the 20th century which impacted Stephen. Lastly, relationships between women in the 19th century were praised while in the 20th century …show more content…

On the other hand, Anne Lister’s family was not aware of her non-normative identity. When Anne wrote in her diary, she would say that “they seemed glad to see me” (Lister, 158) and never reported about any negative language arising. Therefore, making Anne feel unique and confident. This is showing the difference of Stephen and Anne’s perception of identity because Stephen was feeling unwanted and a sin while Anne felt unique and could express herself even though they are both part of the LGBTQ community.
The second difference is how Stephen faced discrimination while Anne didn’t encounter any negativity. After the 19th century, people started to become familiar with non-normative identities and started to become intolerant of them. For example, when Angela told Ralph about Stephen’s letter and her affairs with Roger, Ralph had an issue with Stephens letter but ignored the affair. He said that he would hound her if there was anything between her and Stephen. Yet, he never said a word about how Angela and Roger had an affair. He thought that a letter that a woman wrote to another woman was worse than a man and a married woman having an affair. Another example is when Angela tries to convince Ralph that she does not like Stephen by insulting her. Angela does not want to get betrayed by Ralph so she says that Stephen is a pervert and a degenerate creature for liking women. This made Stephen

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