Performativity of sexuality and gender in Sarah Waters' Tipping The Velvet and Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal And The White

In her book Gender Trouble, Judith Butler coins gender performativity as a concept, and describes it as the result of repetitive acts that establish a supposed true gender. Since gender is fluid and cannot be determined or defined according to one's sex, gender is considered to be performatively produced. Hence, there is no gender, but it is only produced by means of some performative acts that are regularized by gender coherence. The repetition of certain acts brings about labeling the identity as either a "he" or a "she," which leads to formation of heterosexual identities. This repetition of performative acts suggests the fluidity of sexuality, and indicates that there is no sexuality before actions. As a result, performativity of gender and sexuality challenges heteronormativity and lays bare the constructed nature of heteropatriarchal norms. As such, this thesis analyzes Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet and Michel Faber's Crimson Petal and the White to illustrate two different examples of the use of performativity in a NeoVictorian context. It aims to reveal the fluidity of gender and sexuality by the unconventional characters in a "queer" framework. As a result, it examines how the idea of performativity of gender and sexuality contributed to protagonists' flee from heteropatriarchal norms towards their self-realizations.