Coming Out of the Closet while Coming-of-Age: The Construction of Gay Male Sexuality in Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story

Year 2021, Issue: 55, 101 - 120, 01.05.2021

Süleyman Bölükbaş

Abstract

Published in 1982, Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story is
a bildungsroman of a young boy remembering his past and sexual
initiation. While the novel traces the narrator’s experiences of growing
into a young man, it also includes glimpses of gay men’s experiences
in the U.S during the mid-20th century. This article attempts to analyze
the character’s journey of sexual discovery as part of his identity
construction and details how this development of sexuality differs
from the same-sex sexualities in the bildungsroman tradition. During
his coming of age and self-growth process, the character’s sexual
discovery is affected by the presence of the father figure. Due to this
figure, the protagonist becomes attracted to his first love, Kevin. In
light of the theoretical framework on the bildungsroman, gay sexuality,
masculinity, and the oedipal triangle, this article examines the way the
main character’s discovery of his attraction to Kevin is shaped by his
relationship to his father. And this leads to the discovery of both himself
and his sexuality during the process of transitioning from boyhood to
gay manhood, where his sexuality becomes a part of his identity.

Keywords

Edmund White, bildungsroman, gender, sexuality, masculinity, queer literature, Edmund White, bildungsroman, gender, sexuality, masculinity, queer literature

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