‘Ça n’empêche pas d’être un homme’: Requeering Masculinity in Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus (1884)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many have struggled to argued whether Rachilde reverses gender binaries or reinforces them by ensuring the continuation of active and passive partners within the narrative of Monsieur Vénus. However, both foundational and recent turns in queer theory regarding heterosexuality present gender non-conformity as a result of a fluidity of gender performance, rather than one based on an opposing binary. This article deals with Rachilde’s ambiguous approach to gender, by focusing on different moulds of masculinity. I take a step back from critical approaches which necessarily read her oeuvre in the light of the gender binary, and ‘requeer’ her work by presenting the ‘norm’ of heterosexuality in a non-normative light.