"What a Strange Girl": Characterizations of "the Lesbian" in The Price of Salt

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to look at the topoi surrounding lesbian literature and existence and how lesbian literature historically both has played on and subverted these set narratives. I will focus on The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith and examine how the story, the characters and the setting are influenced by the topoi of traditional lesbian literature, but also subvert them. My two chapters are constructed around two main concepts. The first chapter follows Elaine Marks’s theory of the “lesbian fairytale” to analyze the stock characters which often appear in lesbian narratives. By actively using this model to examine the characters in The Price of Salt, I find that the characters are implicitly characterized through their inclusion in a lesbian literary tradition. In the second chapter, I delve deeper into the analysis based on concepts and understandings from Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” which explains how, in American society, heterosexuality is both assumed and enforced. I find that the lesbian pulp genre of the 1950s was integral in creating and enforcing a picture of what a lesbian looked and acted like and worked as a key enforcer of compulsory heterosexuality. I prove that Highsmith’s utilization of stock characters and situations from lesbian pulp novels is essential to accomplish the original and subversive ending the novel has become known for.