本文是一篇英语论文，本文拟从女性主义批评着手，运用朱迪斯·巴特勒的性别操演理论对《杜兰葛山庄》中的女主人公埃迪斯·霍普进行分析。
Chapter OneTHEORY OF GENDER PERFORMATIVITY
1.1 The Origin of Gender Performativity
Performativity is the power of language to effect change in the world:languagedoes not simply describe the world but may instead(or also)function as a form of socialaction.The concept of performative language was first described by the philosopherJohn L.Austin who posited that there was a difference between constative language,which describes the world and can be evaluated as true or false,and performativelanguage,which indicates action in the world.For Austin,performative languageincludes speech acts such as promising,swearing,betting,and performing a marriageceremony.For instance,the utterance,“I do”—said under the right circumstances by theright speakers with the right intentions—transforms the utterer from being unmarried tobeing married.Austin posited a number of felicity conditions that must be met in order for such utterances to function performatively.These fundamental ideas have beenadopted by other academics to investigate the different effects that language can have inthe world.How to Do Things with Words(1962)is the foundational text on performativelanguage:here Austin introduces and elaborates on the differences between constativeor descriptive language and performative language and eventually moves to describe alllinguistic acts as belonging to three types:locutionary(language that describes),illocutionary(language that does things in the world),and perlocutionary(language thatis the effect of that doing).In other words,performative force,or the ability to“dothings with words”is expanded to cover a much broader range of linguistic activity thanthe discrete speech acts of promising,swearing,betting,etc.Authored by a student ofAustin’s,Searle developed these categories into what has been known as“speech acttheory”(1969);Benveniste similarly expounded upon speech act theory with a focus onefficacy and speaker roles(1971).Most notably,in the 1990s,Judith Butler developedthe concept of performativity to describe how gender is constructed,she argues thatgender is an ongoing and socially constructed process,which proceeds through acontinuous series of performative acts,from,for example,the utterance of“It’s a boy!”through a person’s lifetime.Hence,performativity is the process of subject formationthat,through linguistic as well as other social acts,creates that which it claims torepresent.Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter are key texts in the development ofperformativity as a social process as related to gender,sex,and sexuality;ExcitableSpeech theorized the politics of performativity in speech.
1.2 The Concept of Gender Performativity
Throughout the twentieth century,feminists questioned ideas of biologicaldeterminism or the belief that differences between men and women were biologicallyinherent.Instead,some feminists proposed that sex(understood as the biological body) was different from gender(the cultural expectations and meanings of that sexed body).This sex/gender division aimed to emphasize that the differences between men andwomen largely resulted not from biology but from societal structures that could bechanged,that gender was a construction.As Simone de Beauvoir writes in The SecondSex,“One is not born,but rather becomes,a woman(301)”.
In 1929,Virginia Woolf proposed the idea of androgyny in her feminist work ARoom of One’s Own.It aims to oppose patriarchal ideology,blur the gender distinctionbetween male and female,and achieve a harmonious binary relationship.This viewabout the possibility of gender construction has been interpreted or developed bydifferent voices in the course of feminism.Later,the post-structuralists stronglysupported their views in their discussions on the relation of sex,gender,knowledge,and power.Lacan argues against the notion that woman does not exist.In the History ofSexuality,Foucault argues that sex is not a natural characteristic or an established fact,but a constructed experience category with its historical,social and cultural origins.Gender has constructiveness and maneuverability in the discussion of feminism andpost-structuralism,thus forming its open and uncertain features.
Chapter TwoEDITH’S DILEMMAS
2.1 Inheritance or Subversion in Writing
Edith believes that most women dream of ending up with an ideal fairy tale endingwhere Prince Charming rescues Princess from danger,buys her roses,and rescues herfrom the mundane life of a single woman.As Edith remarks to her agent Harold Webb,the fable of the tortoise and the hare is the formulaic story she is best at writing.
People love(that story),especially women.Now you will notice,Harold,that in my books it is the mouse-like unassuming girl whogets the hero,while the scornful temptress with whom he has had astormy affair retreats baffled from the fray,never to return.Thetortoise wins every time.This is a lie,of course...In real life,ofcourse,it is the hare who wins.Every time.Look around you.And inany case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoisemarket(Brookner 27).
Just as in the story of Cinderella written by the Grimms,the only way out for a womanlike Cinderella is to be patient and moral in order to overcome difficulties,and beshould wait for the day in which a man will come for her as a reward for her patience,thus,a woman is trained into dependency and should be“beautiful,polite,graceful,industrious,obedient,and passive”or she will always be in a low status andhard-working position.
2.2 Subject or Object in Desire
With Edith’s tortoise-like personality,she is like Cinderella waiting behind thedoor for her beloved to save her,so she is by default the passive party who waits,gives,and submits in her relationship with her lover David,standing behind the curtainwatching him walk away and waiting for the next meeting.Women,as individuals bornwith free will and the ability to act,exist in the world and inherently have the samedesire for conquest and transcendence as men.However,the passive,dependentsituation given to women by a patriarchal society prevents them from realizing theiremotional desires through autonomous action and free will,and instead relies heavily onthe illusion of passivity to gain the approval of men.This causes the woman’s emotional desires in male relationships to seek fulfillment in opposite ways and forms:she mustresist the temptation to become the subject of male desire,to think of herself as theobject of male desire,must ignore her inherent emotional values,internalize thestandards prescribed for women by men,and must extinguish the emotional demands ofthe self,transforming the demands of male desire for women into normal demands.However,Edith’s family,friends,and female guests at the Hotel du Lac compete to bethe subject when faced with their desires,such as her friend Penelope Milne’s belief thatmen are appendages to be conquered,and one of the guests in the hotel,Monica,doesnot behave as a married woman should.As Penelope,Monica treats men as playthingsand wants to use acts like a chaotic sexual relationship to humble her powerful husbandand,if not,to ruin his reputation.After Edith arrives at the Hotel du Lac,she begins towrite letters to David,and many details in the storyline are derived from Edith’s letters.
Chapter Three CITATION OF GENDER NORMS ........................ 22
3.1 Manifestations of Desires ..................................... 23
3.1.1 An ideal lover .................................... 24
3.1.2 A sybaritic wife ....................................... 25
Chapter Four SUBVERSION OF GENDER NORMS ............................ 33
4.1 Subversion in Body Dimension ............................... 33
4.1.1 Awakening of body consciousness ...................... 34
4.1.2 Instability of gender ................................ 36
CONCLUSION ................................. 46
Chapter FourSUBVERSION OF GENDER NORMS
4.1 Subversion in Body Dimension
Though Gender Trouble focuses on gender,Butler also questions the validity ofsex as a“natural”category,noting that even biological sex is gendered.She returns tosex in Bodies That Matter and aims to reconcile the theory of performativity with thematerial body.Butler argues that sex is“not a simple fact or static condition of thebody”but instead,like gender,“part of a regulatory practice that produces the bodies itgoverns”through performative acts(“Bodies”1).The body appears through and isaltered by norms regarding sex,gender,and sexuality.To speak within these classicalcontexts of bodies that matter is not an idle pun,for to be material means to materialize,where the principle of that materialization is precisely what“matters”about that body,its very intelligibility.In this sense,to know the significance of something is to knowhow and why it matters,where“to matter”means at once“to materialize”and“tomean”(“Bodies”32).Discourses solidify and compose systems of unstable,unstructured bodily features,which in turn become the bodily standards according towhich certain identities or social groups are made.In terms of the bodies that matter,making them out and visible,consolidating and reinforcing them in order to become thegeneral standard and the cultural attribute of the body,thus creating its culturalintelligibility—this is the main process of materialization.The body,on the otherhand,which is classified as“no matter”,is put in a condition where it is“abject”,whereit still“exists”,but is veiled,pathologized by the discourse,and has its culturalintelligibility removed.
CONCLUSION
Traditional feminists define sex as biological and gender as cultural,and there is apreexisting subject.However,Edith does not even have an established gender identity,consequently she cannot be recognized by those who follow gender norms under apatriarchal society,and she is punished for acting in a way that does not conform to thegender norms set by men and is forced to be sent to the Hotel du Lac,which specializesin disciplining women.She observes the other female guests in the hotel,tries toperform gender,and imitates to become a good woman.At first glance,Edith appears tohave internalized the dominant view of women’s vocation in her time and culture.Butin the process of performing femininity,she sees that the fate of the female guests in thehotel is as lonely as before she came to the hotel,and their spiritual world becomesemptier as they spend more time in the hotel,the daily talk is just shopping and minuteoccurrences,which is very different from the independent Edith.Gradually,she realizesthat her position as a writer allows her to make her own decisions independent of whatis assumed to be the right thing to do.Consequently,she stops performing and choosesto leave the hotel and return to her real self.
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