Dialectic of Gender and Desire in Shaping the Female Identity in Pope Joan and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
محورهای موضوعی : نشریه زبان و ترجمهAylin Haezi 1 , Roya Yaghoubi 2 , Vida Rahiminezhad 3
1 - South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 - South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3 - Research Institute for Education, Organization of Educational Research and Planning, Tehran, Iran
کلید واژه: Identity, Gender Roles, Feminine subjectivity, masculine domination,
چکیده مقاله :
The present study examines the picture of women in Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Woolfolk Cross’s Poe Joan and shows how the writers redefine what makes femininity and the notion of female subjectivity in their novels. To do so, Judith Butler’s theory of performativity is used to provide a clear portrait of the female characters in these works. In addition to an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the opposite sexes, the study explores how women from different perspectives are related to each other. The two authors cry against any notion of masculine and feminine relations that justify and fixate on female subjugation and play down female characteristics and focus mainly on what contributes to shaping the female identity. Through the lens of Butlerian performativity, it is revealed that Winterson and Woolfolk unanimously depict a different feminine identity that crosses the boundary of typical female figures and renders a new persona for them that fits with no usual portrait of women in male-centered societies.
The present study examines the picture of women in Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Woolfolk Cross’s Poe Joan and shows how the writers redefine what makes femininity and the notion of female subjectivity in their novels. To do so, Judith Butler’s theory of performativity is used to provide a clear portrait of the female characters in these works. In addition to an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the opposite sexes, the study explores how women from different perspectives are related to each other. The two authors cry against any notion of masculine and feminine relations that justify and fixate on female subjugation and play down female characteristics and focus mainly on what contributes to shaping the female identity. Through the lens of Butlerian performativity, it is revealed that Winterson and Woolfolk unanimously depict a different feminine identity that crosses the boundary of typical female figures and renders a new persona for them that fits with no usual portrait of women in male-centered societies.
Andermahr, S. (2008). Jeanette Winterson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bailey, P. (2006) “Writing Her Story: Narrative Reconstruction in Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.” Philological Review 32.2, 61-78.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1994). “Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler,” Radical Philosophy: A Journal of Socialist and Feminist Philosophy, 67, 32–9.
Butler, J. (1997). The Psychic Life of Power. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2003). Women and Social Trans-formation. New York: Routledge.
Butler, Judith (2004). “Imitation and Gen-der Insubordination”. In The Judith Butler Reader, edited by Judith Butler and Sarah Salih. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Childs, P. (2000). Modernism. New York/London: Routledge.
Doan, L. (1994). “Jeanette Winterson’s Sex-ing the Postmodern.” The Lesbian Postmodern. Ed. Laura Doan. New York: Columbia University Press, 137-155.
Fisher, L. & Lester. E., eds. (2000). Feminist Phenomenology, Dordrecht. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press.
Fragkou, M. (2004). Theatrical Representa-tions: Gender Performativity, Fluidity, and Nomadic Subjectivity.
Fuller, R. C. (2008). Spirituality in the Flesh: Bodily Sources of Religious Experience. New York: Oxford UP.
Greener, I. (2002). ‘Agency, Social Theory and Social Policy in Critical Social Policy, vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 688-705.
Grudem, W. (2002). Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood. Crossway Books.
Harris, A. L. (2000). Other Sexes: Rewriting Difference from Woolf to Winterson. New York: SUNY.
Hutcheon, L. (1988). A Poetics of Postmod-ernism. History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge.
Lloyd, M. (2007). Judith Butler: From Norms to Politics. Cambridge: Polity.
Lopéz, G. (2007). Seductions in Narrative: Subjectivity and Desire in the Works of Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson. New York: Cambria.
Lovell, T. (2002). "Thinking Feminism with and against Bourdieu." Feminist Theo-ry1.1: 11-32.
MacKinnon, C. (1987). Feminism Unmodi-fied: Discourses on Life and Law, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mazurana, D. (2005). Gender, Conflict, and Peacekeeping. Ed. D. Mazurana, A. Raven-Roberts, and J. Parpart. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Plumwood, V. (1994). Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.
Roberts, M. (2005). “Pope Joan: a book by Donna Woolfolk Cross”, Peter Lang Publishing, New York.
Rubinson, G. J. (2005). The fiction of Rushdie, Barnes, Winterson, and Carter: Breaking Cultural and Literary Boundaries in the Work of four Postmodernists. North Carolina: McFarland.
Sim, S. (2001). The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. London: Routledge.
Scott, L. (1998). “Lessing's Early and Tran-sitional Novels: The Beginnings of a Sense of Selfhood”, University of Otago.
Walby, S. (1996). “Key Concepts in Feminist Theory”, Feminist Research Centre in Aalborg, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University.
Winterson, J. (1985). Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. London: Vintage.
