English Language and Literature Commons^™

Charlotte Charke’S Gun: Queering Material Culture And Gender Performance, Jade Higa

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay juxtaposes readings of material culture and gender performance in Charlotte Charke’s Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke (1755). It argues that the transient relationship Charke has to the objects in her life mirrors the fluidity of her gender. The essay ultimately uses Charke’s narrative as a case study in a questioning of a binarized gender matrix. The thesis suggest that, though we lack language to fully describe it, characters and historical figures like Charke move beyond and explode gender binaries.