Gender Performativity in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights

In this paper, Emily Brontë's (۱۸۱۸-۱۸۴۸) novel Wuthering Heights (۱۸۴۷) is examined based on Judith Butler's (۱۹۵۶- ) critical theory, gender performativity. In fact, in this paper, the searcher shows how female identities are affected by men and masculine society's norms. The definition of the term of feminism is not a very easy task. It is so multifaceted and multidimensional that dealing with its definition and history needs or demands the huge information got by much studying. Gender can be defined within discourse in terms of gender refers to diversity of activities that have symbolic signification and meanings. These symbols can be realized through the way that a subject dresses, thinks, walks, and talks. Gender identity is constructed and reproduced through these symbolic activities in a very broad sense. Emily Brontë indicates how women of the Victorian age should be submitted to the cultural and social norms by which they should follow the gender acts and performativity and these imposing gender roles construct women's identities. As a result, this paper illustrates the predicaments of women who keep behaving based on some defined notions of the patriarchal Victorian society in which they are the performers of some gender acts. However, the main female character, Catherine tries to evade the gender performativity and gender roles and does her best to be different from the stereotyped image or symbol of a Victorian woman.

کلیدواژه ها:

gender performativity ، gender identity ، Emily Bronetë ، feminism ، masculine society's norms