Gender Theory in Hamlet

Link to the Article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26475534?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=gender&searchText=hamlet&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dgender%2Bhamlet%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&refreqid=search%3A202832467c463fe9b1297b155776b07c&seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents

Summary:

“Lawrence and Lacan on ‘The Transformation of Hamlet’” written by Misook Kang is a journal article that analyses two essays written on Hamlet. Missouk Kans is an Associate professor at Inje University in Korea. Her article compares D.H. Lawrence and Jacques Lacan’s readings of Shakespeare’s play by focusing on Hamlet’s view of women. Both Lawrence and Lacan find the source of Hamlet’s insanity in his relationships with women, specifically in his attitude toward the sexuality of women. One of Lacan’s hypotheses about the play is that Hamlet’s prompt action for revenge is hindered by his desire of his mother. Lacan argues that Hamlet does not follow the pattern of an Oedipal narrative in which he would have most likely identified himself with Claudius, the recipient of his mother’s love. Instead, Hamlet chooses to not choose between the two kings because Gertrude’s voracious desire is the basic determinant for his own desire. To support this argument, Lacan points to the closet scene of Act III, where Hamlet attempts to make his mother renounce her love for Claudius. When she expresses her willingness to follow Hamlet’s demand, Hamlet abruptly relinquishes it. Lacan considers Hamlet’s unconscious will to not commit as the main cause of his tormented mental state. Hamlet does not know what he wants so he cannot find a way out of his situation of his dependence on his mother. Kang, the author of the article then compares Lawrence and Lacan’s discussions of Ophelia and relates them to Hamlet’s sense of the body.

Kang then proceeds to share the two thinker’s opinions on the relationship between Ophelia and the male characters in the play. Lacan concludes that there must have been some authorial intent when Shakespeare chose to expand Ophelia’s function in the play compared to earlier in the story. Given that Ophelia is not present in a large chunk of the play, the three stages by which she is linked to Hamlet are what capture Lacan’s attention. The first of these so called stages is when Ophelia reports Hamlet’s behavior when he visits her after seeing the ghost of his father which shows the strange indecisiveness toward her. The second stage is after the nunnery scene in Act III when Hamlet speaks to her about sex and having children and that she is no better than a woman conceived as the bearer of children which he curses. Lacan attempts to identify Ophelia with the phallus and argues that she is marginalized and rejected by Hamlet as a symbol signifying life and the creation thereof. The third stage is after Ophelia is dead. Only with her death is she reintegrated into the play when Hamlet finally makes his declaration of love. Her emergence in the play corresponds with the trajectory of the way Hamlet could attain his own individuality. Kang states that Lawrence’s essay does not include as elaborate of a discussion of Ophelia, however she thinks he would agree with much of Lacan’s analysis. Unlike Lacan, who sees Ophelia as “bait” and a man’s object of desire, Lawrence demonstrates moe sympathy toward women. Lawrence is apparently more alert and resolute toward gender stereotypes and is repulsed by by Hamlet for his conceited perversion with Ophelia.  

Our society’s construction of gender is so pervasive that it shapes and influences every person and social interaction. Even if someone identifies outside of the gender binary, and though gender roles are ever-shifting, it is impossible to escape the ramifications of how we label ourselves. Thus, gender theory has shaped history– the world has been deprived of scientists, rulers, artists, and others who were constrained within their limited roles as women because of what society deemed appropriate for their gender. Even women who did rise to power are constantly viewed through a lens of gender theory because of how they bent the traditional rules surrounding gender. Every historical event occurred the way it did because of how gender identity and constrictive gender roles shaped each and every player acting in that event. Our world would not be the same today if we had taken a different view on what being a woman or a man means hundreds of years ago.

Gender perception has shaped different monumental events in modern societies history. Classic differences between men and women range from purely physical attributes to emotional and mental stereotypes that continually limit genders in their endeavours. Those limits are now changing, but they are hard to for our society to leave behind entirely. As our society grows more open to accepting different genders and sexualities, the ones who are adamantly against this change also become much easier to hear. The introduction of social media into the mainstream has also brought new and contradicting views concerning gender into the light. We have an emerging wave of acceptance and expression concerning gender identity coming into the open that was previously unaddressed. We also have a very loud and unapologetic group of people who are doing there best to stop the changing views of the world. As Gender Studies continues to expand off of women’s studies and female theory, we continue to interpret different past situations based on the specific views and values of our time. This means that we are able to see the flaws and miscoming of past events, and hopefully learn from them. If the modern views of gender had been present during the draft of WWII there would have been a very different result from what actually happened. Instead of the nations young men going off to war and the women staying home, there would have been more flexibility, women going into the military and men staying on the home front. However, at the time there were much more limiting views on gender. It is easy to look back and address situations through modern perspectives that were not present when the situation occurred.

In the United States, women only gained the right to a voice in politics in 1920, not even 100 years ago. For the 144 years that our nation existed before that, half of the population was prohibited from having a say in politics because of their gender. Women gaining the right to vote was a turning point for Gender Studies. Before 1920 there was a large political difference between men and women, one mattered and one didn’t, but after the 19th Amendment was passed the playing field was levelled, suddenly a woman had just as much say in our national politics as a man. This moment of immense change and redefinition of what it means to be a woman happened many times during the 20th century. The perception of women has evolved over time just as the perception of gender itself has changed.

One modern event that can easily be looked at and analyzed through a Gender Studies perspective in the most recent American election. Regardless of the outcome of the election, it was a turning point for women in politics, one of the major parties of the United States had nominated a woman for the presidency. Many events do not specifically have a correlation to gender empowerment or equality, but end up having an influence on society to change. The 2016 election did this, the election was not about women, it was about two candidates fighting for a precedence, however, the effect of one of those candidates being a woman was monumental. Suddenly there is a woman invading a classically male space, and this gives all women power.

Small shifts in the way that men and women are represented in society are the reason that Gender Studies is such an important literary view. Throughout history, gender has played an influential role in how people interact and society functions, viewing different historical events through the literary lense of Gender Studies allows us to open up different interpretations of these events.  When we use this literary analysis technique we are able to explore new views on old events and this helps us to understand past events in more in-depth ways. We are also able to make connections from past events and there treatment of gender to our modern treatment of gender.

Gender Theory can be applied to Hamlet in order to read into the different ways that male characters interact and utilize female characters throughout the play. Gender is another tool that Shakespeare employs to manipulate the plot and the power dynamics within. The prevalence of symbolic gender relationships and dynamics in Hamlet provides us with the raw material to analyze the play under a Gender Theory lens.

The male characters in this play used women as weapons against each other, wielding their bodies and emotions against other men in order to manipulate their decisions. The few women who do exist in the play have little or no power independent from their male counterparts.

For example, Gertrude is mostly only present when either Hamlet or Claudius is also present. She also lacks any powerful soliloquies, and in a play where words are power, that trait implies a lot about her agency. Her limited physical presence suggests something about her character in that she is unable to exist as a person separate from the stronger male characters she is related to. Gertrude is also only present to be a source of emotion and conflict for the other characters in the play. Hamlet views her as a source of disgust and perversion because of her sexual relationships with both his father and his uncle, and these feelings are part of his seemingly uncontrolled rage and madness. In Act 1 Scene 2, Hamlet remarks that his father is “but two months dead—nay, not so much, not two./ So excellent a king, that was, to this/ Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother/ That he might not beteem the winds of heaven/ Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth,/ Must I remember? why, she would hang on him/ As if increase of appetite had grown/ By what it fed on. And yet, within a month/ (Let me not think on’t; frailty, thy name is woman!)” (Act 1 Scene 2 lines 142-150). In this passage, Hamlet criticizes his mother’s sexual appetite, and soon expands his critique to all women, not just Gertrude. He also comments that all women are ‘frail’, a classically misogynistic view. Hamlet is also seen as a mentally frail man, and many scholars have suggested that his contempt for women might be rooted in his similarities to them.

To Claudius, Gertrude is a symbol of power and triumph, because his marrying her represented the shift of power from his brother to him, and thus his triumph over his brother. In this way she is just a tool used by men to assert dominance over eachother. Furthermore, despite being the Queen and Hamlet’s mother, we see she has very little control of the treatment of her son when he ‘goes mad’. Claudius seems to make the decisions for Gertrude, such as deciding that Hamlet will go to England.

Gender Theory can also be applied to understand Ophelia and her fate. Throughout the play, Ophelia is used by her family as well as Hamlet, and her speech reflects her purpose as a passive object. Ophelia is treated as a sexual object by both her father and brother, and her virginity is a family affair. In Act 1 Scene 3, Laertes warns her of the pitfalls of premarital sex and tells her to fear intimacy with Hamlet. However, he implies that premarital sex is only an issue for women and that men like himself should not be concerned about partaking in it. This double standard for men and women was especially prevalent in Elizabethan times and Ophelia suffers greatly from it. However, after Laertes speaks with Ophelia of her chastity, stating that it is her most important treasure, Ophelia hits back and addresses the double standard. She sarcastically says that “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep/As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,/ Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,/ Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,/ Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,/ Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads/ And recks not his own rede” (Act 1 Scene 3 lines 49-55). This response can be viewed as a small female victory in a sea of losses for women in Hamlet. In this moment Ophelia represents a honest and feminist voice in the novel. In the BBC production of the play, Ophelia’s reaction to her brother’s speech is clearly sarcastic and contemptuous, and although she listens to what he has to say, it’s clear in her body language and her response that she realizes the hypocrisy. While the larger theme represented in this scene is the double standard that will follow the female characters throughout Hamlet (and on into many other Shakespeare works) Ophelia’s challenge of it in this scene suggests her as a strong female. Unfortunately, her intellect and independence are suppressed by the male characters in the play.

Polonius, Ophelia’s father, belittles Ophelia with his language. He tells her to “think yourself a baby” (Act 1 Scene 3 line 114) and he tells Ophelia that she does not know what she is doing with Hamlet. Polonius also feels the right to weigh in on Ophelia’s chastity, telling her that “From this time/ Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence” (Act 1 Scene 3 lines 129-130). Ophelia takes this all quietly, saying “I shall obey, my lord” (Act 3 Scene 1 line 145). This language makes it very clear that despite Ophelia’s own wishes she will do what her father tells her because she accepts his authority over her. Polonius also uses Ophelia as an instrument for which to expose Hamlet’s mind. He instructs her to speak with Hamlet as he listens in more than once, in order for him and Claudius to gain insight into Hamlet’s madness and motivations. Just like Cladius’s use of Gertrude, Polonius uses Ophelia to assert dominance and control over other male characters.

Hamlet also verbally oppresses Ophelia, and thinks very little of her and all women. When they get into a fight, Hamlet tells Ophelia to “Get thee to a/ nunnery, farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry,/ marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what/ monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and/ quickly too” (Act 3 Scene 1 lines 148-152). Hamlet essentially plays into the idea that women are a bad influence for men and cause them to lose their honor or virtue. This idea is reminiscent of the story of Adam and Eve, which is one of the first pieces of text Gender Theory was applied to. Although Ophelia is crushed by these harsh words she does not insult Hamlet, and she even ignores the brothel reference in her response. Hamlet further disparages women by referring to them as “breeders of sinners” (Act 3 Scene 1 line 132) and saying he has “ heard of your paintings too, well/ enough. God has given you one face, and you/ make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and/ you lisp; and nickname God’s creatures and make/ your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no/ more on ‘t. It hath made me mad” (Act 3 Scene 1 lines 154-159). Here Hamlet comments on women’s deceptiveness by using makeup to hide their natural looks. This is an ironic critique that can be analyzed through Gender Theory. Women use makeup to make themselves appear more attractive to men, a value men instilled in women in the first place. It’s ironic that Hamlet is criticizing women for using makeup when they do it to please men like him. Also, in a play so richly steeped in deceptiveness by male characters to achieve their individual goals, especially Hamlet, it’s ironic and hypocritical he’s attacking women for practicing a relatively minute deceptive behavior to attain theirs. What’s more, their goals of attracting males aren’t even goals, just things they’ve been told they need to do. While Laertes and Polonius control Ophelia’s body, Hamlet controls her with conversation. In Act 3 Scene 2 lines 119-131, Hamlet and Ophelia have a conversation while attending the play taking place. Hamlet makes many sexual references to Ophelia, and Ophelia responds in the most innocent and oblivious way she can. Many gender theorists have assumed her naive responses to Hamlet’s rather clear sexual innuendos are intentional by Ophelia in order to maintain her reputation as pure by not appearing knowledgeable about sex. In this way, Hamlet controls the conversation and the words that come out of Ophelia’s mouth. In Hamlet, words are considered a powerful weapon and so Hamlet’s control over Ophelia’s is even more meaningful.

Later Hamlet kills Ophelia’s father, goes mad, and leaves Ophelia despite his promises of love. Throughout this abuse, Ophelia does not fight back. Ophelia is used as an object by all the men in her life, yet she accepts it as her duty, as that is how women were expected to act during Elizabethan times, subservient to men.

Ophelia is made to be nothing more than the daughter of Polonius or the to-be wife of Hamlet. She is simply an instrument wielded by male characters in order to control or understand other male characters in the play. However her agency and independence changes in Act 4.

In Act 4, Ophelia’s father Polonius is killed by Hamlet. This provides the audience with an interesting contrast between a male and female character in similar roles. Hamlet has also recently lost his father to a murder by a close friend. As we saw since Act 1, Hamlet’s reaction is full of anger, and he decides to feign madness in order to exact revenge on his father’s killer. This reaction, although somewhat dubious in its authenticity, highlights Hamlet’s mental control and agency. His madness is intentional and purposeful. Ophelia, on the other hand, when encountered with the same circumstances, becomes truly insane. Although both Hamlet and Ophelia have strong emotions about their respective father’s deaths, Hamlet shows some control over his, while Ophelia’s fester inside and erupt violently and uncontrollably. Ophelia embodies the emotion of life’s troubles, a role that often falls to women.

The idea that women are frail and weak is further developed by the male characters through their commentary on their reactions to tragic events. When Hamlet is grieving for the death of his father, Claudius advises him that his sorrow “ ‘Tis unmanly grief./ It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,/ A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,/ An understanding simple and unschooled” (Act 1 Scene 2 lines 98-101). Claudius notes here that his grief is feminine, specifically in making Hamlet appear weak, misguided, and simple-minded. In this way, Claudius projects these traits onto women. When Laertes hears that Ophelia has drowned, he laments that “Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,/ And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet/ It is our trick; nature her custom holds,/ Let shame say what it will./ When these are gone,/ The woman will be out” (Act 4 Scene 7 lines 211-215). Laertes claims that once he stops crying, the woman will be out of him, and he will be masculine again. These examples illustrate how emotion is associated with women, and men are simply supposed to get revenge. Hamlet pretends to feign his emotion to exact revenge, and Laertes also plans to get revenge after Hamlet kills Polonius. Ophelia, however, simply gets emotional.

Once Ophelia’s dad dies, she no longer has to be passive because the patriarch in her life is gone. Although this empowerment is intertwined with insanity, either way she claims the power she could not have or show when she was sane. In the BBC adaptation of Hamlet Ophelia takes off her clothes in front of the king and queen when she goes mad. This is a way for Ophelia to take back her sexual power, as she does what she wants and finally wields control over her own body. Her disrobing makes the other characters very uncomfortable, and Ophelia pushes away their attempts to clothe her, in sharp contrast to her passive obedience earlier. Ophelia is using her body as a weapon in a new way. Previously, men were using her body as a sexual weapon against other men, but now Ophelia is using her body as a weapon for her own means, demanding attention and forcing people to listen to her by shocking them with her actions. In this same scene, madness takes Ophelia from the marginality to centrality. Ophelia has enough power and authority to make the king uneasy when she is mad, and visually she is the focal point of the scene, while Claudius and Gertrude stand on the periphery.

In the same scene she expresses her sexuality, she also sings short and puzzling songs which highlight the oppression she feels by the men in her life. When her madness breaks out of the constraints of patriarchal inhibitions, we see that the foundation of masculine authority is irreversibly called into question by her racy mocking of song lyrics. The songs focus on sexuality, especially virginity. In one song, she sings “By Gis and by Saint Charity,/ Alack and fie for shame,/ Young men will do’t, if they come to ‘t;/ By Cock, they are to blame./ Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,/ You promised me to wed.’/ So would I ‘a done, by yonder sun,/ An thou hadst not come to my bed” (Act 4 Scene 5 lines 63-68). In this melody Ophelia’s madness is partially explained, the pressures of marriage and chastity she faced have driven her to madness. Possibly referencing Hamlet, she laments that a man promised to marry her before he had sex with her, and then afterwards refused to marry her because she was no longer pure. Ophelia seems to hysterically obsess over the double standards women in her era faced, and the surrounding characters view these songs as nothing more than products of her insanity, when really they speak some truth about her life and her frustration. The way everyone brushes off these melodies further upsets Ophelia. These melodies are Ophelia’s attempt to convey her insanity, to explain to the audience and the characters that the patriarchal oppression she has faced has led to the collapse of her poise and mental health.

Later in the scene, Ophelia gives everyone in the room flowers. Through the choices she makes in which flowers to give which people, she accurately exposes the people in power, and in her madness Ophelia speaks truth. When she was sane, Ophelia could never tell people what she really thought, but now through a veil of madness Ophelia has power and agency, which allows her to say and do whatever she desires without repercussions. The symbolism of the flowers she hands out to the characters reveals her true feelings towards Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius. This scene fits perfectly into a classic Shakespearean motif that only fortifies the reading of Ophelia as a power figure. Shakespeare portrays characters that challenge authority as either fools or insane. These characters then speak truth to powerful characters through the protective cover of foolery or madness. Ophelia clearly fits into this class of Shakespearean characters in the aforementioned scene. In this way, she has the power of truth and honesty that all the other characters lack, although it is cloaked in madness. As she distributes these flowers, she delivers with them searing truth, and seems opposite of the pushover character she was before.

Then, just as Ophelia is beginning to take back her power, she dies. She is said to have been sitting on a willow tree above a brook when a branch broke and she fell in and drowned. Gertrude, delivering this news to Laertes and Claudius, adds that in that willow “fantastic garlands did she make/ Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,/ That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,/ But our cold maids do “dead men’s fingers” call/ them.” (Act 4 Scene 7 lines 192-196). This excerpt is rife with symbolism. The flowers that had symbolized her agency and sudden power as a truth-teller were involved in her death, and “her weedy trophies and herself/ Fell in the weeping brook” (Act 4 Scene 7 lines 199-200), suggesting that her agency met an abrupt end. The loss of her literary agency is shown in the description that she was “one incapable of her own distress/ Or like a creature native and endued/ Unto that element” (Act 4 Scene 7 lines 203-205). This passage suggests she was incapable of saving herself or understanding what was happening to her. She simply sang her songs as she drowned, her “garments, heavy with their drink,/ Pulled her [the poor wretch] from her melodious lay/ To muddy death” (Act 4 Scene 7 lines 206-208). Her heavy clothing, which was customary in those times and considered a preserver of chastity, was the thing that ultimately dragged her to her death. Her clothes can be viewed as a symbol of the patriarchal oppression of women’s sexuality in this time period, in this case leading to her death. Her songs were a similar symbol. Furthermore, the flowers she was said to have with her included “dead men’s fingers” (Act 4 Scene 7 line 195) which can be interpreted as a phallic symbol. Thus, her sexuality and the oppression of it by society and men in the play was the ultimate cause of her end. Ophelia is abruptly dispatched at the moment she gains power, and is killed in a very odd way. Throughout the play men die on stage in violent stabbings. They are the central focus of the play in both life and death. Ophelia is confined to the margins once again when she dies, offstage and quietly. While the men die in concrete ways, Ophelia seems to be pulled offstage by an invisible hand. Furthermore, her death is blamed on her as a suicide, in a play where every death is feverishly blamed on other characters. The whole scene though is very romanticized. While the men are killed dramatically and gruesomely, Ophelia sings, surrounded by flowers, and calmly sinks into the brook. Her death was even passive and feminized. Ophelia had a moment of power, but in the end she was killed just as she lived, passively. At her funeral, the lack of respect both for her body and the ceremony further emphasizes her passive and misogynistic end. Both Hamlet and Laertes fight over her body arguing about who loves her more and distracting from the ceremony of remembering her life. Even after her death, Ophelia’s body is used a tool for the male character’s to achieve their own ends. The feud between Laertes and Hamlet is the focus and the “love” for Ophelia, whether real or not, is just used as a chip in their game.  Ophelia’s character, from start to finish, lacked any real agency and she was constantly used only for other male character’s benefit.

C. Limitations of the Theory

The main limitation of Gender Studies, similar to any other type of critical theory, is that it approaches the text from only one perspective. Looking at a character or situation through the specific lense of Gender Studies can have repercussions on one’s holistic understanding of the text. Factors that contribute to a character’s personality and role within the story, such as social and economic status, historical background, and underlying motivations can be overlooked or misinterpreted. Characters and symbols within a story tend to be multivalent, and consequently need to be examined through many different literary critical theories in order to be fully understood. While Gender Studies might provide insight into one interpretation of a text, to truly understand the full meaning, one must look at the characters, symbols, and situations through as many different analytical lenses as possible.

Within the lense of Gender Studies, one widespread critique comes from the ongoing debate about the discrepancy in interpretations relating to either gender identity or biologically determined sex. Vincent Peillon, the French minister of Education, articulated this well when addressing youth education about gender, explaining that “the theory of gender holds that there is a socially constructed sex based on differentiated social roles and stereotypes in addition to anatomical, biological sex, which is innate” (Kirk Center).

Gender Theory is in fact too limited and requires first an assumption about gender which may be too prescriptive. The assumption is that there is a universal definition of gender that spans culturally and geographical boundaries. Gender is much more complicated than that. Different cultures have different constructions surrounding gender identity, from differing gender roles to even different definitions of how many genders there are, it becomes increasingly difficult to interpret a text through a lens of gender. Gender itself is an ever-shifting construction, which each person interprets and expresses differently. Thus, to interpret a text through the lens of gender is limited to one’s knowledge of a certain culture’s understanding of gender, and could be too subjective to be widely applicable. One could interpret a text from the Western perspective of gender, but this ignores the countless other ideas and beliefs surrounding gender that could add depth to the text. Also, one must take into account the historical context of the writing and educate themselves thoroughly about gender at that exact moment because as with different regions, gender and it’s definitions change with time.
D.What other theories is it similar to or different from?

Gender Theory shares similarities with Queer Theory, New Historicism, Psychoanalytic Theory, and Marxism. Gender theory and Queer Theory are both concerned with the definitions of woman, a man, and sexuality. Just as Gender Theory questions gender norms and subverts them, Queer Theory critiques the normative definitions and boundaries of sexuality. Often, Gender Theory is concerned with the social and cultural implications of masculinity as the dominant cultural paradigm, while Queer Theory focuses on the impact of heterosexuality as the cultural norm. Both theories are concerned with subverting and critiquing what is defined as normal. They work on the peripheries of normal culture to focus on marginalized groups. Gender Theory and Queer Theory are the most similar literary theories, as gender and sexuality are separate, but intimately connected ideas. Gender Theory and New Historicism are both concerned with power dynamics and examining texts in terms of how they relate to social and cultural issues. Gender Theory uses literature to understand and critique gender as it is defined by society at the time the text was written, and New Historicism is concerned with interpreting texts to understand what they reveal about history and society, including how literature portrays gender. Both New Historicism and Gender Theory study the representation of gender in literature, as it reflects society’s views of gender. New Historicism is also concerned with power, just as Gender Theory analyzes the power dynamics between genders and how that power is portrayed in normative culture. Both theories interpret power within their historical contexts to better understand social dynamics. Gender Theory and Psychoanalytic Theory share similarities as well. Psychoanalytic Theory seeks to understand the hidden unresolved emotions and conflicts buried in literature. This theory focuses on what is not obvious and what most people would overlook. It employs Freudian theories that counter what is accepted by normative culture. Gender Theory also focuses on looking beneath the surface in its interpretation of literature. It seeks out the obscured and unaccepted aspects of gender and brings attention to these often peripheral ideas. Both Psychoanalytic Theory and Gender Theory are concerned with finding the root of hidden conflicts in society, and while Psychoanalytic Theory encompasses more than gender, it is a key part of its psychoanalysis of texts. A much more distant connection that is still worth noting is that of Gender Theory and Marxism. Marxist ideals can be used to analyze women’s complex reduction to a commodity in a capitalist society. While Gender Theory, Queer Theory, New Historicism, and Psychoanalytic Theory are all distinct theories, they share fundamental ideas.

In order to understand the development of gender theory, one must first understand the development of gender itself. One of the most notable origins of gender is the Bible. In the popular story of Adam and Eve, which for the past 2500 years has influenced gender perception in Western society and how men and women are represented in art. Eve is seen as disobedient, seductive, and as a subordinate companion for Adam. This story has communicated religious and social values to its audience, while simultaneously implying that this interpretation is God-ordained and universal. It has provided society with a reason to regulate and restrict the power and freedom of women in social, sexual, economic, political, and religious terms.

In Ancient Rome, known as the birthplace of Western civilization, gender and sexuality were both quite fluid. We have lots of evidence of this, such as in the popular poems of the lesbian poet Sappho. However, even then, misogyny was common, as evident in Homer’s The Odyssey. Thomas Laqueur, an influencer of gender studies, noted that in this ancient time all the way up through the Renaissance, gender was structured differently than it was in the nineteenth century or today. Men and women were seen as two ‘versions’ of one sex, as parts (however unequal) of a greater order. However, by the eighteenth century in the Western world, gender categories had been naturalized, a concept that would build into the 20th century, maintaining and fortifying the strict gender binary. The cultural phenomenon of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century resulted in a core societal adoption of the value of reason and science. Natural laws were said to be able to explain the world. Medical science of the time highlighted the supposedly drastic intrinsic differences between the two genders. This idea of sexual polarity between men and women, viewing them as opposites or counterparts, would continue on throughout history thereafter. Unlike the previous idea of two versions of the same sex, men and women were now seen as wholly polar counterparts. However, there were a few counterweights on the tipping scale of strict gender roles. The eighteenth century emphasized public ceremony and display, and created an environment of continuous ‘acting’ that many scholars believe may have encouraged a view of gender and other social constructs as performative rather than natural. Furthermore, the idea of inalienable rights that originated in Enlightenment thinking was soon applied to women by many feminists at the time.

Then, the rise of the middle-class in the 19th and 20th centuries birthed the concept of the nuclear family unit, and with it the public and private spheres. Women were encouraged to remain in the private sphere, and make their home a haven from the ills of industrialized society. The public sphere encompassed the burgeoning capitalist economy of the time, and was meant for men to do business and politics. The period of postmodernism and poststructuralism also influenced gender theory, loosening the previously fixed identities we associate with gender, including expanding the discussion to include queer studies.

 

One of the earliest discussions that led to the discipline of gender studies was a result of new research concerning hunter-gatherer societies in the Paleolithic Era. Before this research, there was a general consensus that the gender roles that have persisted throughout history and across cultures were deeply rooted in our basic biology and primitive roles. In these hunter-gatherer societies, men’s greater physical strength and lack of responsibility for childbearing were said to have encouraged them to take on more aggressive behaviors like hunting or warfare. This, of course, would have left more passive and familial duties to women. Then, in the mid-twentieth century, new anthropological work destabilized this theory by revealing that scientists had previously overemphasized the role of some of these ‘aggressive’ activities, noting that activities like small-game hunting, fishing, and gathering played a much greater role in providing food than the big-game hunting characteristic of men, and all of these tasks were performed by women and men somewhat equally (Crash Course). With the previous theory of biological construction of gender roles debased, people began considering the idea of gender as a social construction. This interpretation opened the doors for a much more complex and academic discussion about gender. This research, along with a general increase in cultural intermingling in the 20th and 21st centuries, played a key role in the development of gender studies. As globalization occurred, the Western binary of gender was confronted with the fluidity and disparity of gender in other cultures. Societies could suddenly be easily contrasted, highlighting the relationship between social structure and gender roles and identities.

However, the more concrete advent of this discipline can be traced back to the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This movement itself grew from the civil rights movement of the 20th century, which preached a message of the unravelling of social constructs. This campaign also facilitated women’s first big introduction into the public sphere, which soon highlighted women’s issues. Many women involved in the civil rights movement found their treatment by the public appalling, considering that many of them were protesting for equal rights for one marginalized group but treating another so poorly.

In the women’s liberation movement beginning in the 1960s, feminist scholars set out to unravel the assumptions regarding gender and to determine the credible differences between women and men. This idea of gender fluidity and fracturing socially constructed gender roles soon spread to men too. The lesbian and gay movements of the 1970s and onward also brought the discussion of sexuality to the table, and academics rightly noted that gender and sexuality were inextricably linked, and thus needed to be studied together. Soon, these fields were combined into the comprehensive field of gender studies. The emphasis on the practical rights of women in contemporary societies, women’s identity and the representation of women in media and culture converged with early literary gender work.

With that history in mind, it is easier to approach the great thinkers in the field of gender studies. The first of those thinkers was Sigmund Freud. He coined the terms “Oedipus Complex” and the “Electra Complex” which explain how gender roles develop in young children due to a mimicking of their parents and their sexual desire. Michel Foucault has greatly influenced gender studies through his work The History of Sexuality, which considers how gender and sexuality theorists rework Freudian concepts.

Helene Cixous also was influenced by Freudian ideas about gender development and psychology and was critical of his theory on gender roles. She also was the first person in the field of gender studies to really focus on literature. In her 1975 work “The Laugh of Medusa” she argues that women who do not educate themselves about their sex’s position in the world by reading will not escape the socially constructed prison cell that they are put into. She argues that Western language is structured to prevent feminine expression and that it is women’s job to disrupt that language and make it expressive. Thus, she states that language is the most powerful mode of analysis and destruction of gender bias and roles.

In the 1930s, the American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead’s fieldwork in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific suggested that the masculine and feminine ideals vary greatly between cultures. She also studied the connection between gender roles, sexuality, and Western religion. She wrote many influential books, but possibly the greatest was “Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies”, a work that discussed the Tchambuli people in the Sepik Basin of Papua New Guinea. In this society, females were said to be dominant to males, possibly due to the Australian administration’s outlawing of warfare, a classic masculine power struggle. This book was widely referenced throughout the feminist movement, and all her work is said to have influenced the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s, and the field of gender studies.

Phyllis Kaberry, another female American social anthropologist, studied the Australian Aboriginal people and tribes in Cameroon and wrote the book “Aboriginal Woman Sacred and Profane” which was one of the first pieces of academic literature that emphasized the roles women play in society and culture-building. This book had a strong impact on the formation of the ‘women’s studies’ subgenre of gender studies.

Another prominent figure who had a lot of influence on gender critical theory was Judith Butler. Born in 1956, Judith Butler is an American academic and philosopher who has contemplated theories of the performative nature of gender and sex. She questioned how gender norms get established and policed, both formally through psychiatrists, and informally, through social pressures like bullying a tomboy or a feminine boy. Her solution to disrupting these norms is to overcome the policing function by resisting the violence that is imposed by ideal gender norms, especially against those that are gender nonconforming in their gender presentation.

In addition, theorists like Luce Irigaray, and Laura Mulvey made great contributions to the field in its youth. Irigaray analyzed and criticized gender theories developed by people like Hegel, Descartes, Plato, Aristotle, and Levinas. She also studies language in relation to gender, in particular, the differences between how men and women speak. Her work with language has significantly influenced literary gender studies by turning an analytical eye to not just the content of a character’s words but the way in which they are said. Her 1974 novel “Speculum of the Other Woman” considers phallocentrism in Western culture and psychoanalytic theory. She also employs Marxist ideas to discuss women’s complex reduction to a commodity in a capitalist society. Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist who wrote the 1973 essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in which Mulvey discusses Freudian theories about gender. She considers how the spectatorship of cinema plays a role in gender and sexual desire and how cinema and literature are designed to reinforce gender stereotypes and norms through the power of perspective. Mulvey suggests that a story’s structure, its characters, images, plots, and dialogues are subconsciously built on patriarchal ideals. She also includes in her discussion consideration of the works of Josef von Sternberg and Alfred Hitchcock. The female actor never has a direct impact on the outcome of the plot or keeps the story moving, and instead serves the purpose of creating a strong visual and erotic impact that male characters cannot create. This idea became widely referenced in the 20th-century feminist movement’s examination of the representation and role of women in film and theatre.

Although gender studies and theory have been in existence as long as humans have, the more established field is much younger. Academics are still working to formalize the history and origins of the field. We have attempted to cover its main developments, but given the enormous cultural breadth this topic has, its origins are hard to trace. That’s part of the beauty and the pain of gender studies. It is wonderfully complex, broad, and universal, which makes it so interesting to use as a tool for analysis, but also hard to define.

Gender study transcends disciplinary boundaries, analyzing and questioning the representation of gender in culture, the social and cultural construction of gender, and the construction’s frequent conflict with gender identity. This analytical approach can be applied to the realm of literature by reading with a devotion to analyzing gender identity and gender representation. Gender studies encompasses women’s, men’s, and queer studies. A French writer and feminist theorist, Simone de Beauvoir, who had a significant influence on feminist theory and gender theory, said that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. This idea of gender as a societal and cultural construction is central to gender studies. Gender and sex are often confounded or confused. Sex is the more biological term of the two, simply defining if one is male or female based on anatomy. Often, gender is regarded as a performance or a practice of one’s identity, while sex is a biologically predetermined identity and can be much less complex.

Another influential theorist, Julia Kristeva, came up with two concepts central to gender studies: semiotic and abjection. Semiotic refers to the gaps, empty spaces, and silences within the language in which there might then be space for a woman’s language, different than that of the male-dominated discourse. Abjection allows oneself to separate oneself from something that they are not, like gender from sex. Kristeva asks, “What can I be without a border?” and that we must try to shy away from drawing borders. We can apply this criticism of borders to gender critical theory by questioning the construction of gender norms in literature. We can analyze how characters’ actions fall within the borders of these traditional gender norms and attempt to find where they are. What is something that strictly a female would do? Something only a male would say? Or does a character’s actions seem to ignore the borders? Thus, as we try to deconstruct and analyze these borders and constraints in literature, we can use Kristeva’s idea of abjection.

One way to deconstruct gender is by breaking it into social, biological and cultural constructions: gender identity, biological sex, and gender expression. These three constructions highlight the fluidity of gender and its ability to fluctuate in response to constraints, which vary on an individual basis and through cultural shifts across geographic and temporal borders. This is what reading with a gender theory lense analyzes. 

Analyzing how ideas about gender and sex develop and circulate throughout a text as well as questioning the constructions of gender and sex is central to analysis that uses gender theory. One could critique the idealization of masculinity in certain performances and the accompanying devaluation of femininity and subordinate masculine figures. Gender studies can also be used to consider the confrontation or opposition to the status quo gender ideologies in particular iterations of masculinity and femininity. It does this in part by analyzing and doubting the evidence we’ve based our gender conceptions off of. One of the methods for doing so is through textual examination. Literature is rife with the raw material for gender theory analysis. Almost every story chronicles relationships between the sexes, explores power struggles based on gender, contains strict gender roles and has identity and sexuality crises. Literary gender studies work to provide a timeline of gender perception over the course of human existence and to analyze broader cultural patterns related to the literature’s geography or time period. Gender study is about deconstructing the norm and crossing boundaries in the pursuit of unearthing a more genuine expression of personality and sense of self.