The Hug

The Hug

In every work, the reader looks at it and must infer what the author is trying to say. Usually, the reader incorporates his own political views into the work as a group such as his feelings towards different genders, classes, races, or even sexual preferences. With that being said, it is safe to assume that "The Hug" by Thom Gunn is no different. Gun, a homosexual author, writes in such a way as to capture his audience, but all the while making many feel uneasy as to what he is portraying.

When the narrator says, "It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined/Half of the night with our old friend/Who'd showed us in the end/To a bed I reached in one drunk stride," the reader clearly pictures that the narrator is a man and that the person whom he is throwing a party for is either his wife or girlfriend (1-4). The "old friend" appears to be a male, perhaps someone whom they have known since they were in school. A feminist would impugn this stereotypical way of thinking as an archetypal fancy—a conceit held within the psyche of the average individual based on what roles society places on its sexes. For instance, society's archetype would view that a man should throw a party for his wife or girlfriend and not the other way around. More so, it is the man who should be drunk and not the woman and it would be improper for the old friend to be a woman because of the belief in the roles of fidelity.

From a post-feminist view, these archetypes are ridiculous or outmoded. In modern society, it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to throw a birthday party for the man, it is perfectly acceptable for the woman to get drunk at the party, and it is perfectly acceptable for there to be another girl at her husband's or boyfriend's party. Any other way of thinking, whether it be to assume sex roles for androgynous characters or something else, is not only prejudicial, but it is abasing to women.

From a queer theorists perspective, this archetype is completely flawed. A queer theorist would ask the reader, "Why do these characters have to be mixed genders? They could very easily be all men or all women." In fact, if one were to have insight that the author, Thom Gunn was homosexual during his lifetime, he might think differently as to who these characters are. In this sense, the average reader might become alarmed at the thought that these characters might be two men who have gone to bed with each other or even two women.

When the narrator says, "I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug/Suddenly, from behind/In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed," a feminist reader might want to switch her first thought (7-9). She would argue that the woman is apparently the narrator because the man would be the one to hug suddenly from behind and then push his body up against hers. This would be predicated on the societal archetype that a man is usually the one to make the first move on a woman and that the woman is the one who must acquiesce to his advances in the end.

A post-feminist would be able to see these characters from either a male/female or female/male role. She would argue that women are only preventing social change by falling for this archetypal ideology because women have needs, too. The character who is making the move could just as easily be a woman rather than a man. She could just be trying to give her man a birthday present or she, too, could be drunk and have lost her inhibitions.

A queer theorist, here, would stop the presses. He would say that the feminist and post-feminist are behind the times—that these characters could just as easily be having some homosexual relationship than a heterosexual one. He would elucidate that this is caused by society's strong biases against things it considers to be "out of the norm." Whether he be in the right is another argument entirely, but he would definitely focus on the fact that the average reader might view these characters more ominously if he were told that they are homosexual.

In the end, it is entirely up to the reader as to how he interprets the work he is reading. The main point to remember is that each individual views things differently and that these views are a combination of personal and societal osmoses—in other words, what one knows to be the norm and what one believes, combined, forms his views on a particular work, its characters, and its author.