A Research Proposal of the Ph.D.

thesis on

Gender Perfomativity and Gender

Interpellation :
A Feminist Critique in the select
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
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 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

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. 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 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:
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, 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.
 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.

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.

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.

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
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, 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.

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

…, Little Constructions.Graywolf Press,2007.

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