The lie with the ounce of truth : Lillian Hellman's bisexual fantasies

S. Anderlini-D'Onofrio

This article focuses on the bisexual fantasies of playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman. It analyzes the 1934 Broadway success, The Children_s Hour, and the short story "Julia," in her second memoir (1973), turned into a film in 1976. Both works are organized around a bisexual triangle of two women and one man, with one woman positioned as a bisexual, the other as a lesbian. The first is the autobiographical character, who understands her position as opportunistic yet chooses survival. The latter has a superior moral courage but succumbs to compulsory heterosexuality. Based on my theory of labial mimesis and dual female protagonists, I argue that the combination of Hellman_s internalized biphobia and her repressed bisexuality was the psychological basis for her realism as a writer. The article also examines Hellman_s difficulty in relating to real women, somewhat eased in transcultural situations where her guard against same-gender intimacy was down. The article is partly based in archival research in the author_s private papers at the Harry Ransom Center Humanities Research Center in Austin, Texas.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]