“It’s so queer—in the next room”: Docile/ Deviant Bodies and Spatiality in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour

Abstract

This paper explores the spatial and temporal elements in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour by examining connections between bodies and spaces, and the ways in which a body, once it moves beyond expectations or confines of docility into deviance, effectively “queers” a space that is intended to reify and continue the heteronormative timeline. Drawing upon Foucault’s theories of docile bodies as described in Discipline and Punish and theories of chrononormativity as explained by Elizabeth Freeman, Judith Halberstam, and others, this paper examines how the Wright-Dobie School functions as a failed agent of hetero-patriarchal imperialism, arguing that the breakdown of discipline, the fracturing of chrononormativity, and Martha Dobie’s offstage suicide ultimately work to queer the space of the boarding school altogether.

Keywords

• The Children’s Hour
• boarding schools
• queer theory
• discipline
• docile bodies
• chrononormativity