Subversion Of The Traditional Gender Roles In Willa Cather's Fiction

One of America's premier literary artists in the earlier twentieth century, Willa Cather was noted for books of immigrants struggling to make a living in the Midwest during the late 1800s, especially strong female pioneers who had the courage and capacity to face all the obstacles in their difficult lives. Since Cather's sexual identity was ascertained, biographers and critics began to grapple with how Cather's lesbianism, a fact of her life long ignored or denied, may have shaped both the form and the content of her writing. This thesis is intended to investigate how Cather's gender identity influences her characterization in her works. By using gender theories about gender roles and gender identities, the thesis explores the gender identities of Willa Cather and her androgynous characters from the aspects of naming, clothing, behavior, interests and personality traits, and also analyzes the social environment of the time and these trans-gendered people's mental status about their nonconformity in a society with strict gender roles. Conclusion is reached that by adopting male persona herself and presenting masculine women and feminine men in her novels and short stories, Willa Cather challenged and subverted the traditional gender roles. The thesis interprets Cather's characterization from a new perspective, that is, gender identity, which is related to sexual identity but not the same concept. By writing this paper, the writer hopes that more Chinese readers could get familiar with Cather's literary works and learn about the diversity of gender in her fiction, and calls for an expansion of gender roles and tolerance of differences in Chinese society.