The purpose of this paper is to do an analysis of the characters and the theater/masquerade motif in C.J.L. Almqvist’s Drottningens juvelsmycke (The Queen’s Diadem), based on queer theory, by using Judith Butlers’s Gender Trouble. As an alternative to the Swedish, gender determined, feminine pronoun ”hon”, which has been used by earlier critics concerning the main character of the book, ”hen” is proposed. By using the pronoun ”hen” the mistake made by the earlier critics who, without reflection, state that the character is a woman, will hopefully be avoided. In this analysis, the fact that the main character Tinto – generally known as Tintomara – is an androgyne, is demonstrated. The analysis of Drottningens juvelsmycke also shows that the other characters of the book try to – by heteronormative patterns – define Tinto’s gender identity according to their own requests and purposes. The recurrent theater/masquerade motif, which is closely connected with the main character of the novel, reflects the drift of the gender identities between fiction and reality, between acting and real life. By not staying or getting caught in any specific heteronormative gender identity, Tinto reveals the binary gender categories ”man” and ”woman” as non-natural constructions, just as true or false as any other gender.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:vxu-1518 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Ims Johansson, Jesper |
| Publisher | Växjö universitet, Institutionen för humaniora |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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