If gender studies are your bag, then have we got a novel for you! Other Voices, Other Rooms is an exhilarating, gender-bending extravaganza. There are tomboys who will fight anyone who treats them like a girl, a cousin who wears either kimonos or dresses like an old-fashioned lady, townspeople who refuse service to girls who wear pants…it's complicated, to say the least.
Given that it was written in the 1940s, the novel is really pretty daring with how openly it deals with gender issues, and we give Capote a gold star for being so brave.
Questions About Gender
- Who is the lady in the window?
- What is everyone's problem with Idabel?
- When Idabel and Joel go for a walk, he insists on going first across the river because he's a boy. How does what happens next affect how you see him as a male character?
- Why does Idabel want to be a sailor?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
Other Voices, Other Rooms is a groundbreaking novel for its innovative treatment of gender.
Idabel and Randolph's cross-dressing is just another example of the eccentricities in the novel's characters.