Response to “Late Victorian”- Richard Rodriguez from APE

This piece is starts off by comparing the homosexual movement to architecture. Rodriguez shows how in San Francisco certain streets or areas were seen as more heterosexual or American domestication then others that were socially radical. He describes Victorian houses as having the knowledge that generations would follow from the present: “What strike me at odd moments is the confidence of Victorian architecture. Stairs, connecting one story with another, describe the confidence that bound generations together through time—confidence that the family would inherit the earth,” (Rodriguez 759). This passage is showing his confliction with the sad reality that homosexuals have a hard time creating the next generation, while also showing that during the Victorian era only really had marriage between a man and a woman.

Rodriguez goes to explain the gay rights movement and the difference between the feminist movement: “Feminist, with whom I, include lesbians—such was the inclusiveness of the feminist movement—were preoccupied with career, with escape from the house in order to create a sexually democratic city. Homosexual men sough to reclaim the house, the house that traditionally had been reward for heterosexuality, with all its selfless tasks and burdens,” (Rodriguez 762). So, this piece is clearly political, in the fact that Rodriguez is trying to convey an idea that I, myself, didn’t understand until reading this. For some reason, I didn’t about the homosexual movement as changing the roles of men and women, where gay women wanted to go out and make the money and have careers, while gay men wanted to be the caregivers, the nurturing, domesticated house-husbands. I think that point really stuck out to me the most.

Rodriguez moves on to a more sad tone in the piece. He talks about his personal experience with the homosexual movement and the direct impact AIDS has had on his life and his perspective on of it. “AIDS, it has been discovered, is a plague of absence. Absence opened in the blood. Absence condensed into the fluid of passing emotion. Absence shot through opalescent tugs of semen to deflower in the city.” (Rodriguez 766). This passage was moving to me because this is not only about the struggle of AIDS, but what the result of AIDS: death. The last part of this essay is sad because he talks about his lover (Cesar) that died from AIDS. With this last section, he always comes back to San Francisco and the dynamic of the Castro district where gays are not perceived too well.  

The one thing I love about Rodriguez writing style is that he is concise and clear. He also uses a lot of anaphors which I love, I think they give more to his overall point he is making: “They walked Death’s dog. They washed his dishes. They bought his groceries. They massaged his poor back. They changed his bandages. They emptied his bedpan,” (Rodriguez 768). He was describing what Cesar’s family was doing for him, while he was going through AIDS. I also thought it was interesting his use of italics. He would them either for inner thoughts or dialogue: “Bill died. …Passed on to heaven. … Turning over in his bed one night and then gone,” (Rodriguez 770). To me, this is signifying how his lover was only one person, an important person, to him, but to the rest of San Francisco life went on as usual.