Gender Identity And Gender Relations In Carson Mccullers’ Reflections In A Golden Eye

The studies on Carson McCullers’ Reflections in a Golden Eye are not onlylimited but negative, neglecting the subversive and revolutionary essence of the text interms of gender and sexuality. Focusing on those non-heterosexual and marginalizedcharacters in this novel, this study aims to interpret gender identity and genderrelations by mainly applying Judith Butler’s gender performativity theorysupplemented by Nancy Chodorow’s object relations and Lacan’s mirror stagetheories. It first investigates the constructional process of gender identity influencedby the family and the inhabited environment so as to expose the performative natureof gender and reveal “gender troubles”. It also explains why some characters fail toreiterate the social norms and become labeled as “grotesques”. Due to the fluidity ofgender, the thesis then traces the ongoing identity transformation in the context ofgender relations, which, whether hierarchical or not, are fundamentally self-otherrelations that mirror each other. Revealing the problem of gender boundary andhierarchy, it furthermore inspects the subversive acts performed by the “grotesques”and demonstrates the possibility to reconstruct dynamic, democratic and tolerantgender relations. Aconclusion is therefore drawn to summarize the findings above andto revalue McCullers’novel as a revolutionary text in terms of gender issues.