The Collar and the Sword: Queer Resistance in Samuel R. Delany’s Tales of Nevèrÿon

Abstract

This paper explores depictions of queerness and resistance in Samuel Delany’s Tales of Nevèrÿon . The paper particularly focuses on the characters of Gorgik the Liberator, an antislavery crusader and BDSM enthusiast, who is never actually seen liberating a slave in the book and Raven, a woman warrior from a matriarchal land. While Gorgik wears a slave’s collar as a symbol of both his commitment to liberation and his queer sexuality, Raven’s twin-bladed sword represents her commitment to violent resistance of misogyny and, in a reversal of the usual phallic symbolism of the sword, symbolizes a vagina.