George Du Maurier's Trilby: Female Sexuality as an Erotic Organizer

This study traces out female identity and sexuality in George Du Maurier's novel, Trilby. The heroine's sexuality in this novel plays some interesting roles invoking both male gaze and male homosocial desire. There seems to have been lots of debates about female subjectivity and gender relations in the Victorian age. George Du Maurier tries to redefine female identity which had been divided into two aspects in the age: angel and demon. When he describes Trilby's identity, the fixed duality as fallen, demonic and autonomous women might have been considerably fluid. Rather than returning to the old boundaries of female subjectivity and identity through his heroine, he unwittingly describes the female role as an erotic organizer. As Du Maurier shows that Trilby's identity plays a conduit role for male homosocial desire, he created the tension between masculinity and femininity and revealed a changing relationship between female nature and male culture as well. Furthermore, when George Du Maurier in his novel opened a new possibility for an erotic organizer through his heroin, Trilby, he seems to have represented the more fluid female role in the patriarchal culture that asked only some fixed roles for women.