The Gender-free Love In Orlando-an Analysis From Judith Butler’s Perspective Of Gender Performance

Virginia Woolf is a famous woman writer in England and also one of the three representative novelists who use the technique of stream of consciousness in their novels. Because of the close attention paid to feminism and gender relationship, she is also regarded as the forerunner of the feminist movement sprung up in the1960s.Although Woolf’s representative works such as Mrs Dalloways (1925), To the Lighthouse(1927), The Waves(1931) have attracted much concern of scholars and literary critics, her work Orlando (1928) which discusses the gender relationship was largely ignored by people for a long period of time.Although, scholars, both domestic and abroad, have done some kind of research on Orlando (1928) at present, the main concern is always on the discussion of gender ideal, which is the issue of androgyny reflected in the novel. This thesis will use Judith Butler’s gender performance theory and the discussion about Love and Beauty in Plato to analyze the queer figures in Orlando and reconstruct the new principles of love. Butler is one of the leading figures in the field of queer theory studies in America as well as around the world. In her work Gender Trouble:Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Judith Butler provided the influential theory of gender performance, which contributes to the deconstruction of the binary opposition system of gender and the hegemony of heterosexuality under the patriarchy society. Butler thought "gender is also a norm that can never be fully internalized;’the internal’ is a surface signification and gender norms are finally phantasmatic, impossible to embody"(Butler Gender Trouble179).The thesis can be divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction chapter. It includes five parts background information, a brief introduction to Orlando, literature review, research theory and a brief introduction of the thesis’structure. The second chapter will use Judith Butler’s gender performance theory to deconstruct the system of gender binary opposition. First, the thesis admits that people are born with biological sex, but the thesis also admits that there is no direct connection between biological sex and social gender. Actually, the social gender has no sound property other than an illusion. Woolf’s "androgyny" concedes the system of gender binary opposition. So the thesis will replace Woolf’s theory with Judith Butler’s theory of gender performance to prove that people’s social gender is a consequence of constant performance. To deconstruct the hegemony of the heterosexuality through the analysis of the queer figures in Orlando and prove gender is compulsory rather than natural is the concern of the third chapter. Just as the description in the novel, Orlando’s property has never changed. This same Orlando has owned and fallen in love with both sexes, which itself is a proof that sex is not the decisive element in love. The fourth chapter will use Plato’s theory to reconstruct the new principles of love."External Beauty" is the principle that leads one to search for his/her desirable object at the stage when love comes into being."Internal Beauty" is the principle that leads the two lovers to build a moral and stable relationship which is positive and elevated at the second stage when the two lovers get along with each other. The fifth chapter is the conclusion chapter in which it will summarize the main ideas of the thesis. These are the brief structure and fundamental opinions of this thesis.