Gertrude Stein’s “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene.”
The first two paragraphs on page numbered 499.
“Georgine Skeene and Helen Furr were living where they were both cultivating their voices and they were gay there. They visited where Helen Furr had come from and then they went to where they were living where they were then regularly living.
There were some dark and heavy men there then. There were some who were not so heavy and some who were not so dark. Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene sat regularly with them. They sat regularly with the ones who were dark and heavy. They sat regularly with the ones who were not so dark. They sat regularly with the ones that were not so heavy. They sat with them regularly, sat with some of them. They went with them regularly went with them…”
When I first read the story, I noticed a lot of reputation of words, especially the word “gay”. Knowing that this was written in 1900’s, I automatically thought to replace the word “gay” with “happy”. Towards the end of the story, I realized there was more to the story besides them just being “happy”. The second time I read it I used the word gay as it is. I felt like it did have something to do with homosexuality and Getrude Stein purposely repeat the word to catch the reader’s attention and the meaning of the word “gay” really to strike out.
From my understanding, in the first paragraph George Skeene and Helen Furr moved to where Helen Furr was from. There, they were able to “cultivate their voices” might mean searching for their sexuality. In the second paragraph I felt like both women were having some kind of relationships with “dark and heavy” and “not so dark” men while they were exploring their sexuality with these men and with each other.
I like how you read and re-read to develop your understanding of this text. It’s difficult to find the balance. Can Stein mean both happy and homosexual when she uses the word gay? Or one sometimes and the other other times, and both at still other points?
I don’t know that “cultivate their voices” is code–we could simply understand this to mean that they were singers seeking vocal training, which would fit in line with our other discussions of women pursuing artistic goals. But what would it mean to cultivate a voice in the context of being out as a lesbian? What, then, could we do with the part about the “dark and heavy men”? Should we assume they are gay as well? Or that the women are coupled up with the men? Or that they are all artists together in this place that is not where Helen Furr lived with her parents?