VOlUME 05 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2022
1Leila Khalili,2Hossein Alidoustestalaki
1,2Department of English Literature, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
DOI : https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v5-i12-92Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT
The article attempts to showcase the performativity of gender and nationality as elements of a subject’s identity in a heterosexual matrix. Applying Judith Butler’s theories regarding sex and gender to the novel The God of Small Things clarifies how Ammu, the most rebellious female character of the novel, subverts the expected performative desire of heterosexual respectability and is able to go beyond the limits of sexuality and thereby beyond the ideologies and performativity of national inclusion. Her subversion of imperatives reveals the gaps in the law and, thus, turns her act into a political one as well. She demonstrates political agency through re-territorializing ‘phallus’ and further through re-signifying her sexual desire.
KEYWORDS:Performativity of Gender, National Identity, Political Agency, Re-signification of Sexual desire, Reterritorialized Phallus
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