scholarly journals Nan King’s Orientation in Sarah Waters’s Tipping the Velvet: A Journey of Gender and Sexual Self-Discovery Following “The Slantwise Direction of Queer Desire”

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Elsa Adán Hernández

Abstract In Tipping the Velvet (1998), Sarah Waters explores the notion of “gender performativity” as studied by Judith Butler (1990, 1993). Its protagonist, Nancy Astley, becomes aware of her sexuality and comes up with doubts about her gender as responding to the stable label society has put on her. This naïve girl moves from performing gender on stage to cross-dressing off-stage amid the crowds of London, not following, as Sarah Ahmed (2006) puts it, “the straight line” (p. 70). The aim of this paper is to explain how this straightness – both in terms of direction and heterosexuality – is the term Nancy, later on renamed Nan King, does not feel comfortable with. Throughout the novel, Nan’s discovery of a whole world of sexual and identity possibilities leads her to look for her own orientation, as her position in relation to the rest of “objects” around her is a queer one.

2013 ◽  
Vol 694-697 ◽  
pp. 497-502
Author(s):  
Jiang Tao Gai ◽  
Shou Dao Huang ◽  
Guang Ming Zhou ◽  
Yi Yuan

In order to search after a new way of the propulsion system of tracked vehicle, a novel structure form of electro-mechanical transmission was developed in this paper, through analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of existing projects of electric drive system for tracked vehicle. It could increase the rate of power exertion obviously and synthesize the mechanical and electrical strongpoint. And based on the structure form, an electro-mechanical transmission was designed with double electromotor added planetary mechanism of steering power coupling and gearshift, considering engineering realization. And then straight-line driving and steering performances of the transmission were calculated which proved that the novel electro-mechanical transmission could meet the requirement of tracked vehicle propulsion well.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Hyma Santhosh

Woman and nature can be considered the best creations of god. Both together keep the earth alive and balanced through the process of creation. The male dominated practices have destroyed the nature as well as women. This paper deals with the different aspects of Eco-feminism through the novel Surfacing by Margaret Atwood. The narrator’s quest to the wilderness of Canada in search for her father which leads to a quest of self-discovery in the lap of nature becomes the major focus of this paper. The unknown protagonist becomes a representative of the entire female community. The realization that women are just an object to be conquered and violated by men is what leads to the ‘surfacing’ of the protagonist. In complete harmony with nature excluding clothes, language, food etc. the protagonist goes crazy which gives her more happiness that with her other relationships. The paper also tries to analyse the close relationship between women and nature and how the virgin nature and woman are destroyed by the invasion of the male community. Repressed gender roles, submissiveness, self-realization through nature and the challenges faced by women that are presented. The concept of women and nature as both victims of the male dominated society is also emphasized. This novel is the perfect literary example of an Eco-feminist work that portrays the destruction of women and nature even in the minutest episodes in the novel. Nature is a treasure-house of many myths that lay hidden in the beliefs, rights and rituals of the aboriginals which are passed from one generation to another. In the same manner women also are the sustainer's of many myths that the male society has made upon her. The mother i.e. both woman and nature is examined here.In a vast country like Canada,nature comprises to its majority through its wilderness.This wilderness hides many priceless virtues and knowledge that can be learnt only in complete harmony with nature.Surfacing is not just the journey of a woman but it is the quest that the female gender thrives for.This paper combines the theories of eco-criticism, eco-feminism and to analyse the novel Surfacing into a biological whole that merges nature, man and the beliefs of man that make existence meaningful and life worth living. In an era of rapid industrialization and materialism, it is necessary to go on a quest back to nature and learn how life was easier in the lap of nature. Great writers like Shakespeare,Chaucer and Wordsworth were able to carve out such master pieces only because of their relationship with the purest and virgin nature which is the greatest teacher for mankind of all times.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002198942096798
Author(s):  
Rūta Šlapkauskaitė

This article employs Christine L. Marran’s notion of “obligate storytelling” to examine the poetic structures of vulnerability in Canadian author Claire Cameron’s novel The Last Neanderthal (2017). The theoretical backbone of ideas on the materiality of being suggested by Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Erinn C. Gilson, and Matt Edgeworth, among others, solicits a reading which foregrounds the moral upshot of conceiving the body as an affective centre of life and an arc of anthropogenesis. By following this trajectory, I attempt to show how in troping the archeological dig as a biosemiotic archive, Cameron exposes the structural homologies between the lives of her two female protagonists, a twenty-first-century scientist and a Neanderthal, whose bones she has unearthed. The novel’s use of narrative bifocality offers a visceral construction of subjectivity, which takes its bearings from the shared experience of corporeal vulnerability. By thus imaginatively unspooling the affective links between the neoliberal female subject and her Neanderthal cousin, the novel calls upon us both to rescale our conceptions of creaturely life and rethink our narratives of human origins.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Rakchuda Thibordee

This article aims to investigate the construction of the gender identity of the young-adult female protagonist in The Hunger Games trilogy. Through the lens of Judith Butler’s gender performativity, both male and female characters in the trilogy manifest different perspectives of masculinity and femininity through the deconstruction of the gender binary. Similar to the muttation of the mockingjays, the female protagonist hybridizes masculinity and femininity. Katniss Everdeen embraces both masculine and feminine attributes simultaneously, and this adoption promotes an alternative way of performing gender. Gender, hence, becomes a choice for characters to perform to present themselves. In this regard, Judith Butler’s gender performativity is applied to analyze Katniss’s gender identity that deconstructs the ideologies of the traditional gender binary. The adoption of gender performativity may encourage awareness and empowerment of gender equality in the trilogy.


Author(s):  
Shih-chen Chao

This paper analyzes gender performativity in the form of cross-dressing cuteness through cosplaying by a popular male-cosplaying-female fan group “Ailisi Weiniang Tuan (Alice Cos Group)” based in China. Drawing from cute studies, gender/queer studies, and fan studies, this paper examines the phenomenon of fake girls as a venue of redefining the boundaries of identity and gender using cosplaying and the notion of cuteness to achieve queerness to address the issue of gender performativity through queered cuteness in today’s China.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Bakhtiar Sadjadi ◽  
Sirwe Hojabri

The present paper attempts to closely study Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in terms of Judith Butler’s concepts of gender, performativity, and agency. Woolf examines women, their struggles and positions in literary history, and their needs for independence. Themes in her works consist of gender relations, class hierarchy, and the consequences of war. In most of her novels, she moves away from the use of plot and character and, instead, emphasizes the psychological aspects of her characters. In Orlando, the protagonist lives through centuries and Woolf allows her character to transform into a female halfway during the novel. The novel is directly engaged in the women’s position and mentality through the lines, dialogues, and events. The principal question of the present study focuses on the perspectives through which gender is presented and the way it could be observed in relation to Butler’s theory of gender as performance. The current survey is further concerned with the angles through which the novel reflects gender troubles and identity crisis of the women, conventionally defined as a minor category, according to Judith Butler’s poststructuralist approach to the analysis of identity. Consequently, there is a confluence between the development of Woolf’s female characters in the novel and Butler’s critical notion concerning the subject’s attempts to present performativity in the form of an active agent.


ALAYASASTRA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chrisna Natalia

ABSTRAK Tulisan ini membahas emansipasi gender dalam novel Middlesex karya Jeffrey Eugenides.Adapun tujuannya ialah untuk: (1) mengetahui struktur cerita novel, (2) mengetahui bagaimana spektrum gender berkembang dalam novel ini, (3) mengetahui bagaimana dan mengapa emansipasi gender direpresentasikan dalam novel ini. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan merujuk kepada teori queer, yang muncul dari feminisme, yang digagas oleh Judith Butler. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa novel ini ditulis menggunakan sudut pandang orang pertama, plot episodikal beralur maju mundur, latar simbolik terintegrasi, dan tone depresi yang berubah menjadi riang. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa spektrum gender berkembang melalui tiga tahapan, yaitu belum berkembang, berkembang, dan matang. Selain itu, novel ini juga menunjukkan bahwa untuk mengurangi diskriminasi, gender harus dipisahkan dari jenis kelamin. Hal itu karena gender tidak muncul secara alamiah seperti jenis kelamin. Gender adalah generalisasi dari performa individu. Kata kunci: gender biner; diskriminasi; genderqueer; kebebasan. ABSTRACT This study is about gender emancipation in a novel entitled Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. The objectives of the study are, (1) to find out how the element of the novel is developed, (2) to find out how the spectrum of gender in this novel is developed, (3) to find out how gender emancipation presented in this novel. The analysis is done based on queer theory, which is derived from feminism from Judith Butler. The result shows that Middlesex is written by using the first person point of view named Call Stephanides, episodical plot with mixed order, simbolic integrated settings, and varieties of tones such as depressions and joy. The result shows that gender spectrum development is divided into three stages, which are being undeveloped, developed, and advanced. This novel also suggests that in order to decrease discrimination, gender must be separated from sex. Gender does not come naturally as sex but it is developed from perfomance. Keywords: binarism, discrimination, genderqueer, freedom


SURG Journal ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Andrea Portt

Jacques Poulin’s novel Volkswagen Blues traces the author Jack Waterman’s journey of self-discovery from Jacques Cartier’s landing point in Gaspé, south down the oyageurs’ route via the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and finally est along the pioneers’ Oregon Trail to San Francisco. Throughout the trip, Jack encounters figures from the many different cultural backgrounds and periods that were important in the creation of today’s multicultural and plurilingual North America. The narrator uses a mixture of languages throughout the novel to emphasize these different cultures and eras, and to call attention to the importance of language to human existence and society. Jack finds self-reconciliation by accepting his connection to others through contact with these other cultures and languages.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-312
Author(s):  
Chris O'Rourke

The crime film Murder! (1930), directed by Alfred Hitchcock for British International Pictures and based on the novel Enter Sir John (1929) by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, has long been cited in debates about the treatment of queer sexuality in Hitchcock's films. Central to these debates is the character of Handel Fane and the depiction of his cross-dressed appearances as a theatre and circus performer, which many critics have understood as a coded reference to homosexuality. This article explores such critical interpretations by situating Murder! more firmly in its historical context. In particular, it examines Fane's cross-dressed performances in relation to other cultural representations of men's cross-dressing in interwar Britain. These include examples from other British and American films, stories in the popular press and the publicity surrounding the aerial performer and female impersonator Barbette (Vander Clyde). The article argues that Murder! reflects and exploits a broader fascination with gender ambiguity in British popular culture, and that it anticipates the more insistent vilification of queer men in the decades after the Second World War.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document