ABSTRACT
The eighth chapter begins the section of the book on sexual orientation. Given the religious commitments of many early American colonists, we might anticipate some national issues with sexuality. Indeed, sexual preference is a key area in which affirmations of American identity have been profoundly inconsistent with actual American social life. Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour is an affecting tragedy that cultivates the audience’s empathy for a young woman who is driven to suicide by the homophobic society in which she finds herself. Some readers object to that suicide, perhaps on the grounds that it suggests a just punishment for her same-sex desire. But this is a serious misreading of the play. First of all, it is at odds with the emotional response that Hellman cultivates. Second, it ignores the ways in which the play strongly suggests the ubiquity of homoerotic feelings, and thus the hypocrisy (as well as the cruelty) of the society that ostracizes someone for her sexual preference.
