A Study Of Identity Cognition In The Perspective Of Gender Performativity

As a new theory of studying human-being’s gender in the west, the gender performativity theory has a great influence on people’s way of inspecting the gender and of cognizing the identity. Judith Butler firstly proposed gender performativity theory in her book Gender Trouble in 1990. She was aiming at deconstructing the concept of the gender’s subject and constructing the gender as a changeable identity which is always in the process. Gender performativity theory has a great subversive effect in the category of gender studies.This thesis uses The Color Purple, Bone, Tripmaster Monkey, China Doll and other ethnic texts to research the application of Butler’s gender performativity in literature, as well as in the studies of gender, ethnicity, culture and so on. In order to analyze applicability and limitations of gender performativity’s research in literature. This thesis is divided into five parts.The first part introduces Judith Butler and her gender performativity theory at first and provides domestic and foreign literary research on gender performativity and the related research of other critics, mainly including two related theories, ethnic impersonation and social constructivism.The second part uses African American writer Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to analyze gender performativity’s guiding function to gender studies and to illustrate the black woman Ceilie’s gender cognitive process in a bad environment. Furthermore, this thesis expounds that the male is also restricted and depressed by social norms by which overturns the conventional binary mode of gender and concludes that deconstruction of gender is the effective way to solve the problem of gender identities.The third part shows the writer’s development of gender performativity from gender category into ethnic category. Using the unity of gender and ethnicity problems to explore gender performativity’s usage on racial issues. With the help of Asian American works, Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone, Maxine Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey, Elizabeth Wong’s China Doll, the writer explores performance of personal ethnic identity and collective ethnic identity so as to open up a new perspective of racial identity cognition.The fourth part expounds the gender performativity’s further development of contemporary gender studies. The writer believes that gender performativity expands the category of gender studies, and distinguishes prescribitivity and performativity. In addition, this essay also explores the dynamic relationship between gender and other minorities’ identity research.The last part is conclusion. As an important branch of contemporary western gender studies, gender performativity improves the solidified mode of gender category of traditional gender studies. At the same time, it makes up the ignorance of minorities, and promotes the further development of the current western gender studies. This article extends gender performativity from a single gender category into the study of ethnic identity cognition resulting in expanding the applicable scope of gender performativity. At the same time, by using African and Asian American women writers’ literary texts, this essay provides a new perspective for ethnic literature studies.