The Stagnation and Transcendence of the Queer Patriarchy: Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms

Abstract

Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) centers upon an effeminate teenager, Joel Harrison Knox, who believes that the reappearance of his supposedly aristocratic father will grant him a paternal legacy in accordance with white Southern norms. However, what awaits Joel is a mansion in decay, ruled by an openly-homosexual and manipulative cousin, Randolph. Most importantly, the father turns out to be in a bed-ridden, vegetative state, which drives Joel to map out his uncertain future in this queerly-occupied household. The term “queerness” here, besides its original meanings of "oddity" or "strangeness," also denotes the "non-(hetero)normative" identifications employed in gender displays. But there is another dimension of the novel'squeerness often neglected by critics—namely, the non-normativity with a heterosexual and/or patriarchal mindset. This article contends that the two male heirs to the mansion, Joel and Randolph, exist in a condition of suspension between deviance from the Southern norms and adherence to the same norms, specifically male dominance and/or white supremacy, thus embodying what I call the "queer patriarchy" in the novel. The article also discusses the potential for Joel, in contrast to Randolph, to establish a renewed sense of his male queerness that transcends the patriarchal norms of the South.