Sex and Gender in Till We Have Faces
In the book there is a clear distinction of what roles (or in Judith Butler's terminology, what performances each sex performs in accordance with their gender that is delegated by society) the males and females must have and live out. Worth is often defined by one's role. When one doesn't feel like they are accurately embodying the role by which society pins them, they feel abnormal and because society outcasts them as such. This reaction society has to those who do not adhere to the culture norms ties in with Michele Foucault's writings. Foucault goes into how society disciplines and punishes the "body" (body meaning an individual) when it does not coincide with the norms the society perpetuates. Ridicule and out casting are common ways that society will punish and discipline a person. Other ways are to label them insane or crazy since anything against the norm is looked at as crazy.
In many of my classes I have seen examples of the way society ostracizes individuals in an effort to conform the individual back to the norms or to do a way with the individual so that the norms aren't jeopardized. I recently saw a film (Revolutionary Road) that told the tale of a couple who wished to go against societal norms. The story ended in tragedy because, ultimately, the wife in the movie could not live if she could not pursue her dream that society inhibited. The mere disapproving look of another person is enough to keep one from going against the norm since we, as a society, care so much what other people in society think.
This same scenario is seen with Orual and Psyche. Orual deems Psyche as crazy and sets out to punish and ridicule Psyche. Psyche is going against the norms of society and "rationality" so Orual tries at every chance to get Psyche to conform back to "how things should be."
Back to gender in the book -- I believe I stepped out of that train of thought for a bit -- Psyche epitomizes what it means to be a woman: beautiful (being number one), gracious, sacrificial, and "pure." While Orual is everything a woman "shouldn't" be: strong, opinionated, passionate, and quick to anger. As a woman, Orual's emotional state is to be "expected" but as a woman, her emotional state allows the King to judge her as irrational and something to be contained and controlled. Where as the King is very emotional and very irrational but for some reason it is not quite as noticed -- it just makes him a bad king.
Orual doesn't seem to be able to be a woman purely because of her lack of beauty. Bardian repeatedly wishes her to be a boy. I found that really interesting. No wonder Orual has such an identity crisis and feels she is in the wrong "body." In all of my gender and feminist studies, I find it increasingly interesting how a male and a female are so pegged into certain roles that by no means should define them. I believe there is a difference in males and females, however, I don't know what they are exactly. This is something I have been struggling with this semester. Because if you took away a woman's breasts or her reproductive system, does she become less of a woman? No. Or if a male is made a eunuch is he less of a man? No. So if reproductive systems and physical traits doesn't make a person their sex, then what is the difference? Whose to say what traits of character make a person their sex? This is definitely untrue because traits of character or gender vary across the globe. Society defines what it means to be male and female (and completely ignores the existence of hermaphrodites etcetera since those don't fit neatly in the dichotomy). I'm not sure why it isn't okay for a woman to have "masculine" traits (and vice versa) and not be normal. Isn't this the way God created us? If He wanted everyone to be the same then He would have made us the same but He did not. He finds beauty in all of us and, in my opinion, it is Satan's doing that makes us see beauty only in certain ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment