Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
"Rubyfruit Jungle" is a groundbreaking novel by Rita Mae Brown, recognized for its candid exploration of sexual identity and societal norms through the eyes of its vibrant protagonist, Molly Bolt. As the daughter of a sexual outlaw, Molly faces societal prejudices from a young age and learns to confront disapproval with defiance rather than submission. Her journey of self-discovery unfolds against the backdrop of 1960s Florida, where she grapples with her emerging attraction to women and challenges the traditional roles imposed by society.
Molly's quest for acceptance and independence leads her to New York City, where her experiences become increasingly complex and often harsh as she strives for respectability while navigating the realities of her identity. The novel emphasizes that love transcends gender, portraying lesbianism not merely as a sexual orientation but as a broader identity that prioritizes women and their experiences. Through an anecdotal narrative, "Rubyfruit Jungle" critiques the imposition of heterosexuality on women and highlights the richness of women-identified experiences. This work remains significant for its honest portrayal of the struggles and triumphs faced by those who defy societal expectations regarding gender and sexuality.
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Subject Terms
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
First published: 1973
The Work
Rubyfruit Jungle is Rita Mae Brown’s first work and Molly Bolt is easily her most exuberant character. Molly learns two valuable lessons as an enterprising seven-year-old capitalist. Society prefers its sex-related industries to be nonprofit, and the children of sexual transgressors suffer in equal measure with their progenitors. As the adopted offspring of a sexual outlaw, Molly is expected to express obsequious gratitude for any crumbs of approval that fall her way.
Molly, however, accepts nothing on sufferance, meeting disapproval with confrontation rather than acquiescence. Unfortunately, each victory over the intolerance or prejudice makes her need for approval from the people she vanquishes all the stronger. Molly can never truly please anyone, particularly her mother, and her father’s death deprives her of the only reliable source of emotional support.
Still, Molly continues to pursue an independent course. Once pubescent sexuality makes its appearance, Molly discovers she prefers women to men. For some, that realization would be devastating, for Molly it is a matter of little concern. Love, in Molly’s world, is love and thus to be cherished, irrespective of the gender. Molly is not given to categorization or recognizing the validity of roles assigned by society and tradition, a circumstance which bodes ill for a Florida resident in 1960.
Faced with a society organized and delineated by the need of one race to dominate another, Molly’s predictable response is a headlong challenge. A clash with authority places her on the next bus out of Florida. When Molly arrives in New York, broke and alone, Rubyfruit Jungle takes a turn toward the dark side. Her experiences as she attempts to claw her way off the street into bourgeoisie respectability are searing. Equally as effective is Molly’s increasing awareness that lesbianism is only incidentally about sex. The successive epiphanies that lead Molly to accept lesbianism as a way of life that rejects the male power system and puts women first are the most affecting passages in Rubyfruit Jungle.
Brown does not believe that heterosexuality is the emotional and sensual state that women most naturally accept, or that those who consider themselves lesbian do so in consequence of a deliberate choice. Rubyfruit Jungle employs an anecdotal structure to illustrate two simple themes, if only in outline form. First, that heterosexuality is a condition imposed on the human community by fiat and continued by force. Second, that lesbianism involves a continuum of women-identified experiences that reach beyond the sexual.
Bibliography
Abel, Elizabeth, Marianne Hirsch, and Elizabeth Langland, eds. The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1983. This valuable collection of essays examines developmental novels by women writers. Rita Mae Brown and Rubyfruit Jungle are discussed at length in Bonnie Zimmerman’s “Exiting from the Patriarchy: The Lesbian Novel of Development.” Zimmerman’s 1990 book The Safe Sea of Women expands many ideas from this essay.
Alexander, Delores. “Rita Mae Brown: ‘The Issue for the Future Is Power.’ ” Ms. 3 (September, 1974): 110-113. In this article, published shortly after the publication of Rubyfruit Jungle, Alexander discusses Brown’s writing and her position on the contemporary women’s movement.
Boyle, Sharon D. “Rita Mae Brown.” In Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Sandra Pollack and Denise D. Knight. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Boyle’s article profiles Rita Mae Brown’s life and work, including an extended discussion of Rubyfruit Jungle and a useful bibliography.
Chew, Martha. “Rita Mae Brown: Feminist Theorist and Southern Novelist.” In Women Writers of the Contemporary South, edited by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984. Chew examines the connections between Brown’s political essays and her fiction. She places Brown in the context of Southern writers who are political activists.
Farwell, Marilyn R. “Toward a Definition of the Lesbian Literary Imagination.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14 (Autumn, 1988): 100-118. Although Farwell’s article does not refer explicitly to Rubyfruit Jungle, it is an extremely useful exploration of recurring themes in lesbian literature. Farwell suggests that feminist literary critics use “lesbian” as a metaphor, a “positive, utopian image of woman’s creativity.”
Fishbein, Leslie. “Rubyfruit Jungle: Lesbianism, Feminism, and Narcissism.” International Journal of Women’s Studies 7 (March/April, 1984): 155-159. Concentrates on the novel in relation to lesbian and feminist issues. Sees Brown as a strong voice in lesbian literature.
Harris, Bertha. Review of Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown. Village Voice Literary Supplement, April 4, 1974, 34-35. Early and sympathetic review of the novel by another writer of lesbian novels. Harris discusses it among works from the feminist publishing house Daughters, Inc.
Mandrell, James. “Questions of Genre and Gender: Contemporary American Versions of the Feminine Picaresque.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 20, no. 2 (Winter, 1987): 149-170. Using Rubyfruit Jungle and two other novels as illustrations, Mandrell explores how genre can influence a woman author’s “viewpoint and the ideological slant of her work.” He focuses on Rita Mae Brown’s use of the picaresque genre, pointing out that Molly Bolt’s story “changes nothing, . . . but, rather, acquiesces to and confirms the marginality experienced by those who are not straight, white middle-class males.”
Palmer, Paulina. “Contemporary Lesbian Feminist Fiction: Texts for Everywoman.” In Plotting Change: Contemporary Women’s Fiction, edited by Linda Anderson. London: Edward Arnold, 1990. Palmer sees Rubyfruit Jungle as representative of early lesbian feminist fiction, which “generally utilized the form of the bildungsroman and concentrated, somewhat narrowly, on the theme of Coming Out.”
Stimpson, Catharine R. “Zero Degree Deviancy: The Lesbian Novel in English.” In Writing and Sexual Difference, edited by Elizabeth Abel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. This groundbreaking article describes and distinguishes between the “dying fall” and “enabling escape” patterns of lesbian narrative, using Rubyfruit Jungle as a prime example of the second category.
Ward, Carol M., ed. Rita Mae Brown. New York: Twayne, 1993. An excellent full-length discussion of Brown and her works arranged according to individual books. Includes a discussion of Rubyfruit Jungle in the chapter “The Grand Canyon Between First Person Narrative and Third Person Narrative.” Also contains an extensive selected bibliography of reviews and criticism about the novels.
Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction, 1969-1989. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. This insightful book-length study of contemporary lesbian prose literature explores the interaction between fiction and community— specifically, how lesbian novels and short stories have both reflected and shaped the lesbian community. Zimmerman describes Rubyfruit Jungle as the quintessential “coming-out” novel, a Bildungsroman.