Query

[trinityofone]

Do you think I can get away with saying fuck in my Portrait of a Lady essay? Specifically:

Reading the title of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady is almost as important as reading the novel itself. Each word is significant, both for what it says and what it does not say. The ‘The’ is definitive: this is not a view, a quite possibly subjective view, of the novel’s heroine—it is the only view. It is a ‘Portrait,’ unabashedly centered on one subject and one subject only, and while it looks that subject straight in the eye, there is a remove; you can see the subject, but you cannot hear, smell, taste, or touch her. It’s a portrait ‘of’: the subject is not presented on her own terms, but through the guiding hand of another; the artist’s presence can be firmly felt. And though this sketch is meant to be the definitive work on the subject in question, the subject is denoted by the singular ‘a’; she is to be taken as herself, not viewed as representative of her species or gender as a whole. But most of all, she is a ‘Lady’: not a girl, not a woman, not even a female. A lady carries with her a certain refinement, an inherent separation from the coarser things in life: there are definitive things a lady simply does not do. She doesn’t dress out of season. She doesn’t allow herself to be unescorted in the presence of a man not her relation. She doesn’t fuck.

Worth the risk? Not worth it? I'm being crude on purpose, and I'm not quite sure how else to get the point across. "Have sex" doesn't carry quite the same weight, you know?

Comments

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

i like it. and i like the crudeness of it. i think my only real issue with it is that there is very little lead up to the crudity and so it seems to be out of the blue and a little forced.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

I think it works in the context of the paragraph, but to be on the safe side, can you ask your professor whether it would be all right before turning it in? If he/she says no, you could easily change it to something else. I tend to play it safe with academic papers.

[darling-effect.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It does seem a little jarring to me, frankly.
I think you get your point across quite well here without needing to use the word fuck. Usually I'm all for cursing a blue streak, but in academic papers? Not so much. Like Isabel, I'd err on the side of caution.
Maybe say something about propriety being her watchword/she is genteel above all else/etc. etc. (Phrasing isn't good there, but you get the idea.)

[darcydodo]

I think you should just quote Guys & Dolls and have done with it. ;)

(I don't know what I think about "fuck" in this particular context, but I certainly wouldn't object to a paper containing the word "fuck" being handed in to me. No clue what your TA is like, though.)

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Being mercifully ignorant of Guys & Dolls, I have no idea what you're talking about.

As for my TAs...we have readers, actually, and I have no idea about either one of them because my Professor read my last paper. (You know this story, right?) I think I may e-mail him and ask his opinion on cussin'.

[darcydodo]

Being mercifully ignorant of Guys & Dolls, I have no idea what you're talking about.

"Luck Be A Lady Tonight" ;)

You know this story, right?

Is that the one where he thought it was absolutely fantastic, and now you have to produce something equally worthy?

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Ask your prof if it's ok.

Otherwise, there may be other terms that are not as bland as "have sex" and not as crude as "fuck" that might still get your point across.

I'll try to think of some :)