Growing Absurd: Sexuality, Development, and Virgin Time in Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage

This article proposes that virginity is a site of strange temporality in the modern novel, one that demonstrates the value of studying time and sexuality as intertwined concepts. With reference to late nineteenth-century ideas of time and development, I theorize ‘virgin time’ as a narrative mode in which a sexual future is constantly expected but never arrives. The article goes on to explore how Dorothy Richardson’s novel sequence Pilgrimage interrogates the pressures of individual and narrative developmental markers (such as virginity loss). I suggest that Pilgrimage emphasizes the eroticism of anticipation and curiosity rather than consummation, and consider the narrative implications of the protagonist Miriam’s long-foreshadowed virginity loss at the end of book ten, Dawn’s Left Hand. Drawing on critical responses to Pilgrimage, this essay also argues that virgin time can challenge reader expectations of sexual and narrative development.