Plague, death, and love: achieving sex equality in Aliya Whiteley's The Beauty

This work explores sex equality in Aliya Whiteley's 2014 novella The Beauty by analyzing the narrator Nate, his utopia-aspiring hometown of the Valley of the Rocks, the woman-slaying plague that curses the community, and the alien mushroom figures of the Beauties that fed and grew from deceased female bodies. Using plague and utopian scholarship, I propose the Valley of the Rocks was an unequal township aspiring for perfection but was punished with plague as consequence of the survival of sex inequality. Using Virginia Woolf and Elaine Showalter's scholarship, I establish women's historical struggle against sex prejudice and demonstrate its survival through the narration of Nate. I also use the work of Laura Kipnis to exhibit the paradoxical conflict between feminist and feminine identities in women, which ultimately manifests itself in Nate's mother's insecurity about her own beauty despite her occupational success. The plague befalls the community to remediate the conflict within and prejudice against women by killing them and bringing them back as improved and liberated Beauties. Beauties are freed versions of human women because they are physically strong, lack feminine facial and physical features, and focus solely on the future of the species. These characteristics allow them to live freely without the threat of oppression. To determine the accomplishment of sex equality by the end of the novella, I analyze Nate and Bee's metaphorical rebirth in the sacred feminine space of the womb-cave where Bee helps Nate overcome the maternal injuries inflicted upon him by his mother's insecurity and death. Together, the two are an example of a balanced, equal partnership and demonstrate the community's accomplishment of sex equality.