A Research Proposal of the Ph.D.

thesis on

Gender Perfomativity and Gender Interpellation :

A feminist Critique on the selected novels of Anna Burns, Anne Tylre, and Gillian
Flynn

Submitted by
Seema Rani
Registration No. 12021112

in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of DOCTOR

OF PHILOSOPHY
IN

English

Under the supervision of

Dr Sushimita Bhattacharya
Assistant Professor, Lovely Professional University on Feb,2023

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Introduction

The aim of this study is to provide a critical analysis of six novels by Anne Tylre, Anna
Burns, and Gillian Flynn through the lens of Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity
and gender interpellation. There are three dimensions of these theories that will be examined:
biological sex and gender distinction, gender performance, and interpellation of gender. The
main argument of the paper is to expose the social assumptions that naturalize, mystify, and
perpetuate the unjust gendered norms that are the basis for their existence. In this analysis, we
try to determine which fictional characters sustain and which characters subvert the unjust
power relations among society's members. As Butler endorses the notion of gender, these
novelists propose changes in existing gender norms and propose a moderational form of
social relations based on symmetrical power relations. In this way, we avoid both extremes of
patriarchal dominance and feminist convictions that the heterosexual power structure should
be overthrown or gender should be abolished.

The purpose of this study is to explore the gender framing and social conditioning that result
in the silencing of women through the analysis of six novels featuring women of varied ages,
social backgrounds, cultural settings, and perspectives. There is something timeless about the
way in which women are made up and how gendering works in their lives. The study will
attempt to read gender, self, profession and race in the light of the theory of performativity by
Judith Butler Though she has a number of theoretical assumptions and ideologies to her
credit, it is her primary focus that is on gender and performance. Butler claims that gender is
performed, with the imitative and repetitive nature of it (Butler 34) that makes it
performative. Butler's other theoretical formulations, such as 'melancholic heterosexuality',
'incorporation', 'gender interpellation', 'parody and drag', are all influenced by Simone de
Beauvoir's concept of woman as a process, Sigmund Freud's melancholia, Louis Althusser's
interpellation, and the lesbian phallus of Jacques Lacan, among others. This method is used to
aptly analyze the chosen works.

In the novels under study, patriarchy is normalized by enforcing dominance and subjugation
within the psyches of men and women, but this is then undermined by the novels themselves.
In this study, the work will be analyzed through the lens of the central characters of each
novel, who have come to realize the constructed nature of their gender, and through their
queer performativity attempt to make an aberration. They challenge the dominant

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conventions, discourses, and institutions of authority that limited their chances of liberation.
A repeated action has a chance of not being repeated/performed in the same way. Rethinking
performativity through the lens of citationality opens up the possibility of agency and
subversion of the status quo. Butler focuses on the subversive gender performances that are
cited and grafted onto other contexts, a practice that reveals the citationality and the failure of
the gender performative in general. It is inevitable that any consolidated ideological strand
will eventually be overthrown, even the normalized and dominant heterosexuality itself will
always have an inner anxiety that it cannot fully deal with.

Butler’s theory provides a better understanding of the reasons for discrimination and stress
that women undergo because of their performative norms, and it also prepares women to
overcome their gender stereotypes. Thus, this comprehensive study presents a new
interpretation of these novels. The critical analysis discloses that these novels are not
monolithic in nature. As a result, there are various interpretations that can be made of them.
There is a wide variety of uses for the term gender in society in terms of specifying the
anatomy and genitals of an individual, and thus tagging him or her as 'male' or 'female'. This
label delimits roles and performances of an individual in a given domain. It also implies
social stereotypes and what society expects from them: being 'male'.

Interpellation was an idea introduced by Louis Althusser to explain the way in which ideas
get into our heads and have an effect on our lives, in such a way that cultural ideas have such
a hold on us that we believe they are our own, so much so that we believe they are our own. It
is important to recognize that interpellation is a process through which we come into contact
with the values of our culture and internalize them into us. Essentially, interpellation
expresses the idea that ideas are not solely yours (for example, "I like blue, I've always liked
it"), but rather something that has been put in front of you for your acceptance. Ideologies-the
ways in which we view gender, class, and race-should be viewed as social processes rather
than a product of our individuality. Whether a person accepts or rejects a culture's attitudes
places him or her in particular power situations.

Objectives

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To understand how gender framing and social conditioning contribute to silencing and
marginalization of women.

To interpret the select texts as a subversive narrative where hegemonic gender norms oppress
women.

To highlight how gender is configured as a form of performativity and analyze the social
implications of gender performativity and gender interpellation.

To explore the social implications of gender performativity and gender interpellation by

examining the select novels.

To explicate how female vulnerability is mystified, naturalized and perpetuated by

manipulative patriarchal normatives

Research Gap:

By broadening the twin concepts of gender performativity and gender interpellation, and
bringing them together to form a unification, a study of the selected texts would be conducted
that has not previously been conducted. Using Butler's concepts in this manner will enable
them to be applied practically. In addition, we will compare and contrast the texts of the three
authors based on these important theories, as well as independently based on style, theme,
demography, socioeconomics, and politics. As a result, we will be able to gain a more
comprehensive understanding of gender in literature as well as gain insight into how gender
operates in various contexts. As well as comparing and contrasting the different texts, we can
also gain a deeper understanding of gender representation in each author's work.

Research Methodology:

The methodology of the study will be critical and analytical, and the selected novels will be
interpreted using the principles of Gender Performance and Gender Interpellation. The
present study will analyze each novel through a textual analysis. The researcher will evaluate
each novel from both a historical and present perspective. This study uses Butler's theory to
examine the reasons women are discriminated against and stressed as a result of their
performative norms in order to explain why they are discriminated against and stressed.

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Consequently, a new interpretation of these novels is provided in this comprehensive study,
in which Butler's theory has been analyzed within the context of these novels. It has also been
shown that Butler's theory prepares women for overcoming their gender stereotypes. These
novels can be interpreted in several different ways, in fact. Through this research project, a
new perspective will be added to the existing body of critical work on these novels.

An American philosopher, Butler (born 1956) has contributed significantly to feminist theory
over the last several decades. Butler is criticized by some scholars for the abstractness of her
work. They feel her work is not applicable to real life situations. Others believe Butler does
not do anything new in terms of tackling gender binary issues. Her ideas are outdated. It is
clear, however, that Butler's work is new and contributes to the framing of a proper definition
of gender that can be acceptable in contemporary society after going through her gender
performativity theory. As she reveals the performative aspect of gender, she alters
perceptions of gender as fixed in a way that changes gender perceptions.

Butler has used the concept of performativity in her analysis of gender development. Butler's
gender performativity theoretics has found its most sustained expression in Gender Trouble
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive
Limits of "Sex" (1993), The Psychic Life of Power (1997) and Undoing Gender (2004) Butler
resourced theory of gender and performativity to derive a theory of gender. Austin coined the
term “performativity” in How to Do Things with Words, stating that people perform certain
kinds of actions by the way they say something. Therefore, “to say something is to do
something” (12). Butler argues in Gender Trouble that gender is a really performative
concept by applying the theory of performativity to the concept of gender. In her opinion, sex
does not cause gender, but rather one's performativity does. Gender is not what one is but
rather is something that one performs, and what one does to achieve. It is Butler's intention to
provide readers with a postmodern view of gender in which she discusses how gender is
performative, how performances are bound, and how drag (drag queens wearing men's
clothes as well as women wearing women's clothes) performances find acceptance in our
society today.

Using the concept of performance, Butler proposes in Gender Trouble that gender identity is
a performative phenomenon that is essentially determined by the extent to which it is
performed. It is important to understand that gender identities are not given by nature, rather

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they are a result of cultural processes. In this sense, we are what we make and remake
through those processes. Additionally, gender intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and
regional modalities of discursively constructed identities. As a result, it becomes impossible
to separate gender from the intersections between politics and culture in which it is invariably
produced and maintained (Butler, Gender Trouble 6). The writer writes that "there is no
gender identity behind gender expressions; that identity is actually manifested by the very
'expressions' that are considered to be its results" (Gender Trouble 33). In his comments on
Simone de Beauvoir, Butler says that:
If there is something right in Beauvoir's claims that one is not born, but rather
becomes a woman, it follows that woman itself is a term in process, a
becoming, a constructing that cannot rightfully be said to originate or to end.
As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to intervention and
resignification. Even when gender seems to congeal into the most reified
forms, the 'congealing' is itself an insistent and insidious practice, sustained
and regulated by various social means. It is, for Beauvoir, never possible
finally to become a woman, as if there were a telos that governs the process of
acculturation and construction. (Gender Trouble 43)

It is explicit that Beauvoir and Butler accept that gender is a process which has neither end
nor origin. So, gender is something that we do rather than something we are. However, what
we do is influenced by cultural and social factors. Thus, gender is a performative concept in
the sense that it doesn't have any separate status apart from its various acts that constitute it's
reality. Performances that don't reinforce this law are repressed or criticized as a result of
their rejection. Explicitly, performance is restrained by cultural factors, discourse, and power
structures. For example, young girls who do not like dolls will have to learn how to play
properly. If they don't, they will be punisAccording to Butler, such performances are
Austinian performances in that they create gender identity when they are performed.

The act of gendering can be inferred from the fact that gender is a result of stylized
repetitions of acts that involve bodily movements and gestures that are culturally acceptable
for males and females. Butler elaborates upon this insight in the first chapter of her book
Gender Trouble:

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 Gender is the repeated stylization of the body a set of repeated acts within a
highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance
of substance, of a natural sort of being. A political genealogy of gender
ontologies, if it is successful, will deconstruct the substantive appearance of
gender into its constitutive acts and locate and account for those acts within
the compulsory frames set by the various forces that police the social
appearance of gender. (Gender Trouble 43-44)
The act of producing us as men or women in particular reinforces the binary system of a
heterosexual matrix by producing us as men or women. Butler argues that the heterosexual
matrix binds gender to behave in binary terms (masculine and feminine). Butler also points
out that these styles cannot be fully self-styled because they have a history and limit their
options.

Furthermore, the research would elaborate about the ways in which gender performativity is
restrained by the way language is used. Butler admits that gender identities are constructed
through language and discourse. In the simplest sense, discourse refers to information or
conversation. In The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse of Language (1972),
Michel Foucault claims that discourse is not the majestically unfolding manifestation of a
thinking, knowing, and speaking subject, but rather a whole, in which the subject is dispersed
and his discontinuity from himself can be determined (55). In this sense, Foucault argues that
discourse is a system of statements in which the world can be understood. I would like to
point out that according to Chris Weedon's Feminist Practice and Post Structuralist Theory
(1987), discourses are a way of constructing knowledge as well as the forms of subjectivity,
social practices, and power relations entailed in such knowledges and their relationships with
one another. According to Butler, discourses are "more than just ways of thinking and
producing meaning" (108). Butler has used the term discourse extensively in explaining her
views concerning gender and sex. In this sense, identity itself is a form of discourse.

Performativity works both ways, establishing norms as well as challenging them. In short, it
is both a way of making the norm and a way of challenging it. In Judith Butler (2008), Gill
Jagger says that the theorist is not only concerned with denaturalizing identity categories, but
also with the possibility of a "resistance and change" (7). According to her essay,

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heterosexuality and the binary system of sexual difference that it is based on, are not only a
necessity, but are also unstable. As a matter of fact, it is instability that opens up a space for
change. In addition, drag performances reveal the simulacra of genders (copies without
originals). Drag means men wearing women's clothes and women wearing men's clothes. In
The body and the performed gender are at odds, bringing both categories into question. to
challenge the notion of "compulsory heterosexuality" (Jagger 1). Aside from subverting the
distinction between inner and outer psychic space, Butler also argues that drag effectively
mocks the expressive model of gender as well as the concept of gender identity as a whole
(Jagger 174) As Victoria Flanagan points out, drag performances are considered to be an
epitome of the disjunction between sexuality and gender (Into the Closet 13), according to
Butler. The theory of Butler, according to Anita Brandy and Tony Schirato, serves both as a
tool for understanding how sex and gender are constituted within that matrix, as well as a
possible mechanism for disrupting that constitution. This theory is perhaps her most
significant theoretical contribution (Understanding Judith Butler 3). The gender
performativity theory of Butler has the potential to create an environment in which the sex
and gender of people will not be discriminated against in any way.

There are several important reasons for Butler's work being well received in sexual studies,
feminism and social theory. In Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory (2014), Anthony
Elliott and Charles Lemert highlight Butler's contributions. As a first step, it provides a
powerful theoretical account of the various disjunctions between sex, gender and identity that
chime with the transformations that are taking place in society as a whole when it comes to
intimacy" (311). Butler has made a significant contribution to the development of theoretics
of sex and gender in this way, revolutionizing and broadening our premises concerning sex
and gender. In order to carry out the present research project, Butler's gender and
performance theory will be applied to the discussion of novels selected for the study.

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 Literature Review:

1.Work: Performativity,Parody,Politics
Author:Moya Lloyd
Findings/Abstract: This article examines both the work of Judith Butler on gender
performativity and examples of how Butler's writing have been appropriated by other
writers.

2.Work: Performativity,Precarity And Sexual Politics

Author: Judith Butler
Findings/Abstract: In this paper Butler re-examine this term and completes it with the
idea of Precarity,by making a reference to those who are exposed to injury, violence and
displacement,those who are at risk of not being qualified as a subject of recognition

3.Work: Performativity Identified

Author:Alecia Youngblood Jackson
Findings/Abstract:This paper analysis the poststructural feminist notion of subjectivity
point to a notion of the self that is fluid, contradictory,and produced in relationship with
others and everyday practices.

4.Work: Judith Butler on Performativity And Precarity: Exploratory thoughts on

gender and violence in India .
Author:Russell Belk And Rishi Bhardwaj
Abstract/Findings:This article discusses the theories of Judith Butler for insight into how
gender Performativity affects and thus individual agency.

5.Work:The Limits of Performativity:A Critique of hegemony in Gender Theory

Author: Denis Schep
Abstract/Findings:This article examines to the extent Butler's theory of performativity
has become a hegemonic framework within the field of gender studies.

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6.Work:All Made Up: Performance Theory And the new Anthropology of sex and gender
Author: Rosalind C.Morris
Abstract/findings:This article considers the impact of recent performance theory ,
especially the theory of gender Perfomativity,on anthropological efforts to theorize sex and
gender.

7.Work:Masculinities , Performativity and subversion:A Sociological Reappraisal

Author:Chris Brickell
Abstract/findings:This article argues for reformulating Performativity and subversion in
a more explicitly sociological frame to render the concepts more useful for examining
agency and subjectivity in the study of masculinities.

8.Work:The Construction of Gender: Judith Butler And Gender Performativity

Author:Li He Abstract/Findings: This paper attempts to trace the development of Judith
Butler's theory of gender in order to fully grasp the dynamic process of her thoughts.

9.Work:The Interpellation of Misogyny By Female Character

Author:Larassati Alya and Delvi Wahyuni Abstract/Findings:This analysis is related to
the concept of Interpellation and Misogyny .This can be seen in two methods: form of
Misogynist women and the way misogyny can get interpellated.

10.Work: The unbecoming of subject of sex: Performativity, Interpellation,and the politics

of queer theory
Author:Mary Bunch
Abstract/Findings:This paper examines the Interpellation scenario forwarded by Louis
Althusser And Judith Butler's theory of performativity to argue that being unbecoming
potentially not only alter reality but also alter the very law that hails the subject into being.

11.Work: 'Boying'the boy and 'girling 'the girl: From affective Interpellation to trans -
emationality
Author:Igi Moon
Abstract/Findings:this paper discusses about the Interpellation of emotions for feeling is
thus a major part of the socialization process used to construct cis-gendered bodies.

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12. Work: Performativity Identified
Author:Alecia Youngblood Jackson
Findings/Abstract:This paper analysis the poststructural feminist notion of subjectivity
point to a notion of the self that is fluid, contradictory,and produced in relationship with
others and everyday practices.

13. Work: Judith Butler on Performativity And Precarity: Exploratory thoughts

on gender and violence in India .
Author:Russell Belk And Rishi Bhardwaj
Abstract/Findings:This article discusses the theories of Judith Butler for insight into how
gender Performativity affects and thus individual agency.

14. Work:The Limits of Performativity:A Critique of hegemony in Gender Theory

Author: Denis Schep
Abstract/Findings:This article examines to the extent Butler's theory of performativity
has become a hegemonic framework within the field of gender studies.

15. Work:All Made Up: Performance Theory And the new Anthropology of sex and
gender
Author: Rosalind C.Morris
Abstract/findings:This article considers the impact of recent performance theory ,
especially the theory of gender Perfomativity,on anthropological efforts to theorize sex and
gender.

16. Work:Masculinities , Performativity and subversion:A Sociological Reappraisal

Author:Chris Brickell
Abstract/findings:This article argues for reformulating Performativity and subversion in
a more explicitly sociological frame to render the concepts more useful for examining
agency and subjectivity in the study of masculinities.

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17. Work:The Construction of Gender: Judith Butler And Gender Performativity
Author:Li He Abstract/Findings: This paper attempts to trace the development of Judith
Butler's theory of gender in order to fully grasp the dynamic process of her thoughts.

18. Work:The Interpellation of Misogyny By Female Character

Author:Larassati Alya and Delvi Wahyuni Abstract/Findings:This analysis is related to
the concept of Interpellation and Misogyny .This can be seen in two methods: form of
Misogynist women and the way misogyny can get interpellated.

19.Work: The unbecoming of subject of sex: Performativity, Interpellation,and the politics

of queer theory
Author:Mary Bunch
Abstract/Findings:This paper examines the Interpellation scenario forwarded by Louis
Althusser And Judith Butler's theory of performativity to argue that being unbecoming
potentially not only alter reality but also alter the very law that hails the subject into being.

20.Work: 'Boying'the boy and 'girling 'the girl: From affective Interpellation to trans -
emationality
Author:Igi Moon
Abstract/Findings:this paper discusses about the Interpellation of emotions for feeling is
thus a major part of the socialization process used to construct cis-gendered bodies.

21.Work: Culture, ideology, Interpellation

Author:John Fisk
Abstract/Findings:This book discusses how we are given a sense of being individual
subjects by being addressed in certain ways by our culture.

22.Work :"The trouble Goes Back to Your Grandfather's time": Masculinity and
Domestic Spaces In Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread
Author:Shreya Rastogi

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Abstract/Findings:This paper interprets the texts as a subversive narrative where
hegemonic gender norms oppress women and children.

23.Work: Antagonist Performance as a Contest of Gender Identity in Anna Burns

'Milkman and Little Constructions
Author:kevihetou Agnes
Abstract/Findings:In Milkman and Little Constructions,Burns presents the tense
atmosphere built up on account of Troubles in Northern Ireland which has intensified the
identity crisis experienced by the individuals.

24.Work: Patriarchy or Feminism: A Butlerian Critique Of Anna Burns'Milkman

Author:Javed Khan and Dr.Samina Ashfag
Abstract/Findings:This paper explores the gendered power relations by applying Butler's
theory of gender Perfomativity to analyze the gendered discourse Burns'Milkman .

25. Work:Gender and Performativity in Contemporary American Novels:A Butlerian

Reading Of Gone Girl By Gillian Flynn
Author:Sadesh Ahmadi Asi , Hussein Aliakbari Harehdasht ,Ehsan Karaminejad
Abstract/Findings: This paper investigates Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl in the terms of
Butlerian concepts of gender and Performativity.

26. Work: Subjected Subject?On Judith Butler's Paradox of Interpellation

Author:Noela Davis
Abstract/Findings:This article discusses about Butler utilising Louis Althusser,s notion of
Interpellation.

Timelines of proposed research work:

In the first year, the focus would be on deciphering the selected theories of Butler so that
the tools are ready before the actual implementation. One work of Anna burn, Gillian
Flynnand Tyler will be selected and analyzed from the lens of these concepts. Moreover,

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we would deep dive into the concepts of Gender Performativity and Gender Interpellation
and study the evolution of the thought process of Judith Butler by going through her
important works. Along with this, a comparison will also be carried out between the three
writers. In the second year, the one important work of each author will be scrutinized and
research carried out in a similar fashion. In the third year, the comparison will be
highlighted and the final thesis would be prepared.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. Crown Publishing House, 2012.

…,Dark Places.Shaye Areheart Books,2009.

Tyler,Anne.Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant .Knoof,1982.

…,The Amateur Marriage.Knoof,2004.

Burns,Anna.Milkman.Fabar and Fabar,2018.

…, Little Constructions.Graywolf Press,2007.

Secondary resources:

Butler, Judith Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex.

Routledge, 1903

…,"Critically Queer". Gender, edited by Anna Tripp. Palgrave, 2000, pp. 154-167.

…,Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. Routledge, 1997.

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…,Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.

…,"Imitation and Gender Insubordination." Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by

Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Blackwell Publishers, 1998, pp. 695-723.

…,"Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and

Feminist Theory. “The Feminism and Visual Culture, edited by Amelia Jones.
Routledge, 2003, pp. 392- 402.

Aston, Elaine and Geraldine Harris, eds. An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre.
London: Routledge, 1995.

Aston, Elaine and Geraldine Hariis. Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook. London:
Routledge, 1995.

Adkins, Lisa. Gendered Work: Sexuality, Family, and the Labour Market. Bristol, Penn.:
Open University Press, 1995.

Archer, Margaret S. Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Beauvoir, Simon de. The Second Sex. Trans., Ed. Parshley, H.M. London: Vintage,1953.

Braudy, Leo and Cohen, Marshall Ed. Film Theory and Criticism. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004.

Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology

and Feminist Theory". Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec. 1998),519-531.

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Butler, Judith. "Sex and Gender in Simon de Beauvoir's Second Sex". Yale French Studies,
No. 72, Simon de Beauvoir: Witness to a Century. (1986), 35-49. Butler, Judith.The Psychic
Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford UP, 1997.

Chakravorti Spivak, Gayatri. "Can the Subaltern Speak?." Colonial Discourse and Post-
Colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams andLaura Chrisman. Columbia UP,
1994.

Bacchi, Carol Lee. Same Difference: Feminism and Sexual Difference. Sydney: Allen
and Unwin,1990.

Bhasin, Kamla. What is Patriarchy? New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993.

Bhatia, Nandi, ed. Performing Women/ Performing Womenhood: Theatre, Politics and the
Dissent in North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Bannister, Robert. Jessie Bernard: The Making of a Feminist. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1991.

Colebrook, Claire. Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Connors, Clare. Literary Theory, A Beginner's Guide. Oneword

Publications, 2010.

Currah, Paisley, and Tara Mulqueen. "Securitizing Gender: Identity,Biometrics, and

Transgender Bodies at the Airport."Social Research: An International Quarterly, vol. 78,
no.2, Project Muse, Summer 2011, pp. 1-52.

Althusser, Louis. For Marx, London: Verso,2005.

…, , Sur la Reproduction, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010.
…, On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,
London: Verso,2014.

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