Grieving in Glitter: Polyphonic Trauma and Queer Healing in Steven Rowley’s The Guncle

Abstract

In The Guncle (2021), Steven Rowley transforms grief into something akin to a collective chorus. Loss is shared, refracted, sometimes colliding and yet harmonising. Rowley gives shape to a “polyphonic” narrative, where multiple voices coexist without being reduced to a single meaning, using conversations that are silly, tender, or painfully awkward. This approach aligns with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony (Bakhtin 6). This paper explores Bakhtin’s theory alongside Dominick LaCapra’s trauma studies, Sara Ahmed’s emotional politics, and Judith Butler’s work on performativity to examine The Guncle’s staging of grief as a dialogue rather than a single lament. Humour in the “Guncle Rules” turns out to be a defence and a teaching tool. This illustrates a queer grieving process that is non-linear and non-uniform, yet deeply relational, where glitter and sorrow can awkwardly coexist.