ABSTRACT
This chapter will analyse the brief trial of The Rainbow in the context of war paranoia and queer theory. Building on a psychoanalytic understanding of the queerness, the chapter begins with an analysis of the prosecution’s accusation against The Rainbow as an obscene work despite not being able to locate any definite examples of obscenity. The law’s understanding of the proper use of language as an arbiter of truth and morality leads to an accusation against the publisher for failing to protect unsuspecting readers from the obscenity within the text. This leads on to a discussion of the proper name and the specific investment within the trial of the reputation and duty of Methuen and their specific failure to abide by it. With reference to Freud, Lacan and Derrida, the ambiguity of the proper name and the lIbidinal investment in the name of Methuen as a guardian against queer jouissance is detailed. Finally, the chapter discusses the affect of shame and its relation to queerness in the context of the chapter entitled shame within The Rainbow. This title is used as evidence of the text’s obscenity, and a Lacanian perspective on the affect as the revelation of the big Other’s absence is theorized as an absence of law, one which the trial must attempt to suture and protect vulnerable readers from.
