Mestas 1

Sheelly Mestas
Jennifer Rodrick
QS115
21 November 2016
A Single Acceptance
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood is about a man named George who is mourning
the loss of his lover Jim. George is a gay man in the city of Los Angeles who is very angry at the
world because of the death of Jim; he struggles to find someone to connect with after he loses
Jim. Throughout the novel George struggles to find someone to connect with because he is
constantly feeling like an outsider. George struggles to find a good connection with someone
because he lives in the 60s and even in Los Angeles there is a lot of discrimination towards the
gay community. Loss and identity have been a major part of George's life, loss and identity have
also been a large part of the LGBTQ community.
People in the LGBTQ community are constantly dealing loss whether they are losing
family members and friends or they are losing a part of their identity because they do not want to
be themselves of the fear of losing family members or friends. In the novel there is theme of loss
shown, George loses his lover Jim and loses the only real connection that he has, BREAKFAST
with Jim used to be one of the best times of their day. It was then, while they were drinking their
second and third cups of coffee, that they had their best talks(Isherwood 6). George and Jim
were very close and Jim was the only person George could really talk to so when Jim dies
George loses his only connection.

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Because George lost the only person he had a connection with he tried seeking for other
people to connect with, but finding another gay man in Los Angeles is tough during this time
because no one ever talked about it. Even if people knew someone was gay they would never
talk about it because being gay was not seen as something right and it was not widely accepted
by the population, even in Los Angeles. In the 60s the LGBTQ community was being depicted
very badly, especially gay men. There were documentaries being released about gay people, one
was called Boys Beware and it made gay men look like monsters, This documentary was
released in the early 60s and was produced by the Sid Davis Productions company. In this film
only gay men were portrayed and their portrayal was astoundingly negative. Gay men were
likened to rapists, murderers and pedophiles as they would try to lure away unwitting high
school-aged boys away from their after school activities and parents (50 Years of Gays in the
Media & in the Streets: The 1960s). This quotes shows that gay people in the 60s were being
depicted as pedophiles, no one would want their kids around gay people especially if the kids
teacher was a gay person. The parents would try to get that teacher fired from the school and the
gay person would most likely never be able to find a job again. George is a professor at a
university so George cannot open up to anyone about being gay for
the risk of losing his job and not being able to find another one again.
Losing a job is reason why LGBTQ people sometimes struggle to
come out and identify as being gay or being transgendered person.
George does not come out and publicly say that he is gay, he never
even tells his best friend Charlotte. Charolette is a woman in her 40s
who just lost her son because he is not living with her anymore.

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Charlotte plans to move away from The United States and to England, George does not want
Charlotte to leave because she is all he has. Charolette is the only person who knows that George
is gay, "No, Charley, I mean it. The past is over. People make believe that it isn't, and they show
you things in museums. But that's not the past. You won't find the past in England. Or anywhere
else, for that matter" (73). George does not want to lose Charley because she is the closest thing
he has to a connection with somebody.
In an attempt to connect with someone and not lose more people, George even starts
building a connection with a student in one of the classes he teaches. George gets excited when
Kenny just talks to him out of the context of school, George feels flattered and excited. Kenny
has never talked to him like this before. He can't resist slipping into the role Kenny so temptingly
offers him(40). George is craving the connection he can not get easily because he is a gay man
in the 60s, he is struggling with making connections because of his identity and so he gets very
excited when one of his students starts a conversation with him outside of school or outside of
the context of school. He is wanting a connection with someone and sees the person as also
having the same feelings and feeling the same connection with him, when in reality Kenny does
not really care much about their conversations. The book is written in the perspective of George
and George makes it seem like Kenny is also into him, Nothing! Kenny giggles(78). But in
reality Kenny just sees George as his professor. They have a conversation at the store and Kenny
buys both himself and George a pencil sharpener but Kenny does not cherish his and loses it,
George says, I've still got my pencil sharpener, and, bringing it out of his pocket, he tosses it
down on the table, as though shooting craps. Kenny laughs. I already lost mine!(79). This
shows that George is cherishing the little conversation and connection he had with Kenny

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because he does not have many of those connections because he is a gay man and it is hard to
find people who are just like him.
George kind of a connection with Charley but desires a stronger connection with
someone, preferably someone who is also part of the LGBTQ community, someone who he can
share the same identity with. Sociologists believe that people are meant to be social and that
humans are constantly needing interactions and connections with other people but they believe
that people who share interests or are part of the same subculture are more likely to be connected
on a stronger level, In a recent paper to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, my colleagues and I found that when people find out that they share a few
idiosyncratic preferences in common with another person (e.g., a favorite author or musician), it
not only results in a sense of connection with that person, but it also causes them to share
emotions and physiological states (Why Do We Form Connections So Easily With People Who
Like the Same Bizarre Things We Like?). According to this source and study people are more
likely to form stronger connection with people who are just like them or share some common
interests as their own. This is what George wants, George wants to find someone like Jim,
someone who is also gay and can understand him like Jim could.
The book A Single Man focuses on the feeling of loss and identity in George's life and
this theme can connect to the LGBTQ community. George wants to have a connection with
someone but is struggling to do that because he lives in the 1960s.

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Works Cited
Isherwood, Christopher. "A Single Man - English4success." N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
"Why Do We Form Connections So Easily With People Who Like the Same Bizarre Things We
Like? - Science and Religion Today." Science and Religion Today RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov.
2016.
"50 Years of Gays in the Media & in the Streets: The 1960s ..." N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
Scot, Jaime. "Shock the Gay Away: Secrets of Early Gay Aversion Therapy Revealed
(PHOTOS)." Huffingtonpost. N.p., 28 June 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.