ates the issue to the question of the validity of texts themselves, for texts have "unstable representational codes" (Doty xii) which make such an analysis uncertain. Doty also sees the issue of denotation and connotation as a political issue, meaning it is important in understanding and coping with the way the dominant heterosexual culture deals with the homosexual culture. The dominant culture keeps queerness connotative, as a sub-text and so as an alternative reading (Doty xii).
Robin Wood says something similar when he notes that connotation in fact suppresses denotation:
When dealing with ideology, it is always necessary to ask not only what it expressed but what it represses. The opposed, largely contradictory, ideological positives our culture offers (monogamy and family, romantic love) have one obvious feature in common: the insistence on exclusivity and mutual possession. . . What is repressed is the possibility that people might
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