The Prohibitive Home Space

Throughout the first act of Churchill's Cloud 9 many marginalized forms of  intimacy are put on display.  However, very few of these moments of intimacy occur in the home, positioning the home space as a haven for heteronormativity.

As Harry and Betty's exchange on the porch ends in the physical culmination of their relationship through what is a momentary embrace or even just a near embrace, the stage directions read "He goes to take her in his arms. She runs away into the house"(14).  Though this adulterous intimacy is kept at bay as Betty re-enters the home space, Harry does not retreat to the safe haven of the home. Rather, after Betty makes her exit he propositions Joshua, the family servant, to "go in a barn and fuck" and on the basis of the stage direction "They go off," we can assume they do retreat to a barn to do so(15). This intimacy, which is doubly-marginalized as homosexual and between native and non-native, occurs even further from the home. Later in the scene, Clive and Mrs. Saunders engage in adultery at a spot which is characterized as "An open space some distance from the home"(15).  Though Clive references entering Ms. Saunder's bed at other points in the text, this is the only moment we explicitly see him committing adultery. Similarly, Edward tells Harry "I love you" as they play hide and seek outdoors, and though it is unclear exactly where or when they have been physical intimate, we learn of this homosexual and somewhat predatory non-normative intimacy as they stand apart from the home. Ellen and Betty's kiss also occurs outdoors.

Though we never see any non-normative  intimacy inside the home, the sanctity of the home, in the sense that it represents heteronormativity and traditional family structure, has clearly been violated. The fact that we never explicitly see non-normative acts inside the home seems to gesture to our imagination of the home as a pure space, and the reality this conception is truly imaginary. As the home and family serves as a microcosm for English society and values throughout the text, a relationship that is made particularly explicit in the lines "This is the empire Clive. It's not me putting a/ flag in new lands. It's you The empire is one big/family," this portrayal of intimacy may also gesture to broader hypocrisy (20).