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English Language and Literature

Portland State University

Gender identity in literature

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

"I'M Absolutely Ordinary": Bella And Her Perception Of Gender Within Twilight, Jaid M. Eichmiller Oct 2020

"I'M Absolutely Ordinary": Bella And Her Perception Of Gender Within Twilight, Jaid M. Eichmiller

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores Bella's perceptions of femininity, virtue, and gender roles within Twilight, with a focus on the feminist stance that Bella takes as the narrator. Through a close reading, I explore traditional gender roles, the internalized maternal roles of wife and mother, and the externalized judgements that Bella expresses. Her relationships with those around her, and most importantly Edward, are judged by her internalized concepts of gender politics. Through the examination of previous literature and the close reading of the core text, I argue that Bella both embodies and rejects traditional femininity.


“It Lurks In The Saying, Not What’S Being Said”: Possible Worlds Theory And Gender Performativity In Marina Carr’S Low In The Dark, Andie Madsen, Susan Reese May 2019

“It Lurks In The Saying, Not What’S Being Said”: Possible Worlds Theory And Gender Performativity In Marina Carr’S Low In The Dark, Andie Madsen, Susan Reese

Student Research Symposium

Low in the Dark by Irish playwright Marina Carr is an absurdist play that focuses heavily on concepts of gender as performance. It does so mainly through role-playing scenes in which two same-gender characters reenact a heterosexual relationship. These scenes can be tied to Marie-Laure Ryan’s conceptions of the four kinds of textual alternative possible worlds (TAPWs) within possible worlds theory: fantasy, wish, obligation, and knowledge. An analysis of the play’s role-playing scenes in conjunction with gender performativity and these four types of TAPW reveals the constructed-ness of gender norms within the work, which further calls into question a strictly …