Analysis on A plane of Sexuality
Let’s look at the title first - ‘A plane of sexuality.’ There’s an obvious play with words here. Rather than ‘airplane,’ the word ‘plane’ can be defined as “a level of existence or development.” This short story is about one perception/perspective/take on sexuality.
The story is written from first person POV. This POV exposes the reader to the protagonist’s thoughts, opinions and feelings, and also shows how the character views the world. The intention may be to get inside the world of the character, but the narrator can often be unreliable.
In the beginning, the characterisation of the protagonist is a “positive minded optimist,” but his words afterwards may make us question that. Instead of carrying a positive tone, he talks about “negative situations,” “worst thing,” “no more,” “gone.” Instead of saying “I’m still alive,” he chooses to say “at least I’m not dead.” These are not the words of an optimist, but rather of someone who can be quite dark.
The airport is then introduced with a distasteful tone. The contempt is translated to the reader, as the protagonist claims it’s worse than non existence. There’s an interesting choice of words - “hurt me emotionally.” Why is there such a strong surge of feeling associated with an airport?
The third paragraph is devoted to the characterisation of the protagonist. Again, instead of being the self proclaimed “positive minded optimist,” the reader can see the cynicalness come out, especially through this sentence “I think that might have just been one fucking brilliantly worked advertising campaign, like Christmas.” Not only so, the readers can start to see the narcissism, especially as the protagonist uses the words “those type of people” rather than “those people” and liken them to “odd homeless tramp.” He offhandedly remarks how his tiny donations makes him feel very generous, and he’s always “try to give what little of myself I’m willing to share back.” His narcissism becomes very obvious when he states “I respond as I have preprogrammed my social self to, with grace and good manners to beguile those who are lucky enough to be engaged.” Instead of having a “positive minded optimist,” we see someone who is cynical, a bit dark and just a tiny bit deluded.
The character of the gay air hostess is finally introduced. We already know the protagonists thoughts of air hostess, in general, as poor unfortunate souls who deserves pity due to their mindnumbing incessant job. But in regards to the “gay air hostess,” the protagonist suddenly starts an unprovoked, homophobic tirade. The tirade isn’t directed to that particular gay air hostess, but rather all gay people in general. The protagonist describes them as a “beast” and refer to them as a “it.” The smile is “stretched almost clinical,” a description of a creepy predator smile. Despite calling them “emasculated” and mocking them that they were “wishing it was a female,” he still sees them in “a position of power” and “can tell bigger more ostensibly male types what to do.”
The protagonist is scared of this gay air hostess. He feels “self conscious,” he feels jittery, his hands are sweaty. In his perception, the gay hostess talk ridiculously, stare at him creepily and is as benevolent as a “tumour.” He feels threatened. He’s “cramped in a confined space like a pack of abandoned smarties” and there is this powerful creature invading his space. He feels as though he is prey for the predator. Terms such as “slapped against my face” and “reach across my lap” suggest the protagonist is fearful that the gay air hostess will ‘attack’ him against his will, like an untamed “beast.”
But most important of all, the protagonist feels emasculated. While he tries to reaffirm his masculinity, (he reiterates that he’s a “man”, has a “stolid life”), this creature makes him “lose his authority and become a meek thing.” He wants to escape and runaway. Afterwards, he wanted to pretend it “never actually happened,” that he never actually got scared. This is reaffirmed later on when the protagonist likens himself to a “small dog.” He sees the gay air hostess “patting my head” and “having me lick peanut butter off It’s balls.” In both scenarios, he is the weaker one and completely controlled, with his masculinity stripped.
The entire time, the protagonist tries to hang onto this facade that he is cool, calm and collected. Despite wanting the air hostess to disappear, he engages him in a conversation, babbling about nothing of consequence, simply to reassert his voice in some matters, instead of feeling completely threatened and docile and out of his control. Of course, when he starts, he can’t stop and wounds up feeling utterly ridiculous. More so, the air hostess responded by 1) “flirting,” thus crippling this homophobic protagonist’s perceived masculinity 2) “patronising” and making him feel stupid 3) “chastising,” hence placing blows on this narcissist’s overblown ego.
The situation worsens for him. The protagonist becomes what he fears. In his interaction with the gay air hostess, he actually becomes docile and diffident. He “blushes bright red” and he “mumbles.” He “look up for acceptance” and he is “rewarded” for good behaviour. Interestingly, the air hostess pats him, exactly like how the protagonist imagined the scenario where he was being pat like a small dog.
In the last paragraph, the protagonist makes a few statements on what the gay air hostess did. He “strokes my arm to offer me what must be a drugged prepoured glass of juice.” He “grabbed my bum on the way out.” The problem is that this narrator is clearly unreliable. He is paranoid. At this point, it’s difficult for readers to distinguish whether the contact was actually suggestive, or whether it’s a part of the protagonist’s imagination.
My Opinion
This short story is not a homophobic statement. Despite appearances, it certainly is a satirical comedy. The comical character is the homophobic protagonist. He sets himself up as such a masculine man -egoistic and narcissistic. He feels better than everyone else, and in his mind, he should feel sorry for them. The story is about the humiliation of this character - where a self perceived masculine man is scared s***less by someone he sees as less masculine than him.
Everything occurs inside his head. The humiliation and fear all come from his mind. He’s scared of his own thoughts, when nothing actually had happened. Clearly, the little old lady found nothing scary about the air hostess. The air hostess is also simply a secondary character. Due to the first person POV, we know hardly anything about him. With the protagonist being such a multi-layered complex person, we could hardly expect the author to characterise the air hostess in such a two dimentional way.
As ludicrous as it sounds, I think it’s not really about homosexuality at all. It’s about prejudice, something you and I both have. It’s when your own prejudice plays against you and humiliates you. It is easy to predict what happens next to the protagonist. As with his words “If nobody saw, therefore it didn’t.” He will walk away, with a selective memory, forgetting how he was emasculated by his own fears, and only reaffirming and increasing his prejudice.
I'll love to hear some feedback about it, whether you agree with my interpretation, or whether you think it's an overanalysis.
Thanks
Wendy
