This thesis discusses performative identity in Djuna Barnes' The Ladies Almanack and Nightwood. Barnes' characters create and perform their identities as an attempt to escape or subvert patriarchal norms and societal prejudices. In analyzing the marginalized performative identity categories (race, class, gender, sexuality), one can glean an understanding of the complex social tensions present during Barnes' era, and understand the socially constructed, confining nature of identity itself.