Cross-dressing as a Symbol in Literature?
There’s a fairly popular theory that when a cross-dressing character appears in a work of fiction, it is often a marker of a challenge to some other binary: male vs. female, rich vs. poor, black vs. white, etc. Can anyone tell me who originally thought up this theory, or at least a book or article that discusses it? Thank you!
Found it myself, it was Margorie Garber, "Vested Interests."
Tagged with: Cross Dressing • garber • margorie • marker
Filed under: Cross Dressing
Valerie
Meg
Although I can’t answer this questions specifically (I’m sorry!) I suggest looking up some modern feminist theorist. Judith Butler was a HUGE gender theorist who discussed how gender is simply a human’s performance rather than instilled nature. Also, the discussion of binaries is a distinctly deconstructionist point of view, which leads me to belief that you will have the most success looking into theorists within the last 60 years or so. I say start with Judith Butler and then go from there.
Tyler Perry?
Sigmund Freud?
Maybe Shakespeare…he may have been a crossdresser?