Her rippling flaxen hair:’ How R. Murray Gilchrist uses the figure of Lilith to represent anti-heteronormative transgression in ‘My Friend’
Gilchrist's short story, ‘My Friend’ stands apart from his other tales, most of which focus on a femme fatale . Rather than centring a deadly woman, ‘My Friend’ follows two men, Gabriel and an unnamed male narrator, as they go on a mysterious rain-swept journey across the wild moors of the Peak District, symbolic of their exile from orthodox society. The tale is permeated with homosexual guilt and yet it is also a profound love story, as Gilchrist depicts the companionship between the men with great tenderness and vulnerability. Whilst ‘My Friend’ is undeniably a tale about men, its one female character, a supernatural inn-keeper who appears to be connected to Satan, reveals much about the interconnectedness between feminist re-workings of Victorian archetypes and queer writing. Throughout his oeuvre, Gilchrist features women who defy patriarchy, follow their desires and invert gendered power dynamics. This inversion suggests that Gilchrist does not subscribe to the moral binary o...
