Djuna Barnes † 18. Juni 1982
Ryder’s sexuality is in the service of procreation, that ever present middle-class duty, though the exaggeration of his sexuality for comic effect initially obscures this fact. Chapter 10, for example, describes Wendell’s dream of having as many children as the number of chess pieces, then as many as the number of cards in a deck. Readers may see this as merely comic, but Barnes turns the comedy to irony. While his extraordinary service to procreation is comic, more important is that this devotion masks his fear of death. As a begetter of children, Ryder is identified with the procreative principle, which, through various digressions, is associated with death. Thus, after initially leading a reader to share Ryder’s perspective, Barnes calls Ryder’s values into question.
Cheryl J. Plump übt sich an Ryder.