"Desert of the Heart"

Paper Summary:

Jane Rule's book, "Desert of the Heart", written in 1986, represents one of the finest and best appreciated works of lesbian literature. It is the story of a woman, Evelyn Hall, who escapes from a controlling and unhappy marriage to a mentally ill man by going to Reno, Nevada for a divorce. While there, Evelyn meets Ann Child, a woman fifteen years younger than herself, who is free spirited and a comfortable lesbian who absolutely refuses to hold in any of the powerful emotions that are rising within her. The two women slowly become lovers which complicates and eases the tensions around her looming court date. Evelyn and Ann look to each other to find answers as to how long their relationship can last and how they can find themselves together when not in the strange world of divorces and altered realities of Reno. The central theme of the book is one common to most self-exploratory literature - that of self-discovery. The point of the novel is to demonstrate the struggle that Evelyn must experience in order to find her true self. Just as Jesus could not have become a martyr without Judas' betrayal, Evelyn could not become herself, her true lesbian self, without first being betrayed by marriage and heterosexuality. It is the purpose of this paper to examine this theme and its elements as they appear in the novel, "Desert of the Heart".

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