ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

identity, which remains unitary and unthreatened throughout. The linguistic form
implies that gender is something extraneous to consciousness—something that must
be sensed by the narrating consciousness rather than being an innate aspect of that
consciousness. The wholeness of identity is, with the possible exception of some
cases of schizophrenia, unassailable from within the realm of consciousness which
the first-person narrative explores. Gender identity is almost, if not absolutely, an
oxymoron, because gender roles (as explored in the latter half of the novel) are social
constructs, while identity is fundamentally private and exists outside of labels—
outside, even, of language. By defining gender as extrinsic to identity, Brophy reveals
a fissure in the techniques of modernism. The narrator’s gender is fundamentally an
epistemological question. However, as announced by title of Sexshuntwo, “The Case
of the Missing (Re)member,” it is an epistemological question that can be addressed
comfortably within the popular form of detective fiction. And, indeed, Sexshuntwo
finds Pat repeatedly attempting to gather clues about his or her gender: from
memories, from physical observation, and from social observation.
It is the social realm which proves (temporarily) decisive for Pat’s gender, and
also proves the undoing of the first-person narrator. Pat encounters a man, an airedale
by the name of Donaghue, who announces himself as the husband of an old friend of
Pat’s by the name of Betty. Pat, who neither remembers him nor is able to hear him
clearly, supplies the old friend with the full maiden name of Betty Bouncer. As Pat
fakes her way through the conversation, she attempts to learn the nature of her own
relationship with Betty, in an attempt to discern her gender. Donaghue departs with
the declaration that Betty spoke of Pat as either her “first date” or her “first mate” –
287