The fall of masculinity through transfiguration in virginia woolf's "Orlando" and Angela Carter's "The Passion of New Eve"

Throughout centuries, 'sex and gender' phenomena have always been the unvarying subject of the primordial argument in the whole world, as people have been put into hard-edged stereotypes under the title of two certain roles "man" and "woman". However, as Judith Butler would also put it "gender is fluid" and we need to look at it from a broader perspective. Only if we remove the borders of traditional gender roles, can we see the fluidity and realize that there are also other gender related aspects like "Transgenderism", "Transfiguration" and "Transformation". The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter and Orlando by Virginia Woolf are two works which abolish the 'hard-edged' borders and deconstruct the traditional gender roles through Transfiguration. On the one hand, Angela Carter breaks down the hierarchical structure of the phallocentric, language, through 'transformation' of the two characters in her novel, Evelyn and Tristessa. On the other hand, Virginia Woolf melts down the solidity of the male centred world by fictionalising an ambiguous world where the main character experiences different gender roles via transfiguration. This study will account for how the balance of power replaces, how the concept of gender is associated with this balance of power with the help of Judith Butler's gender performativity and Michel Foucault's power-pleasure relationship theories by looking at the reasons and results of the transfiguration and the transformation of the characters in Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Angela Carter's The Passion of the New Eve.