Joan’s Female Subjectivity In Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle

There are two main lines in Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle:one is Joan’s life experience with her mother,husband and lovers,and the other is her writing of romance.In her daily life,on the one hand,Joan is greatly influenced by the romance and conforms to the female gender roles;on the other hand,Joan’s female subjectivity is constructed through her subversive rearticulation and performance of female gender roles.As for her writing of romance,Joan employs parody of romance,intertextual references and automatic writing,which reveals the discursive and constructive nature of gender roles and enables the construction of multiple and fluid subjectivity of both genders.Those two lines collaboratively illustrate the construction of Joan’s female subjectivity through her acceptance,doubt and rebellion of gender roles and romance.Drawing on the theory of performativity,the thesis straightens out the construction of the protagonist’s subjectivity through her love and marriage,mother-daughter relationship,and writing.The thesis concludes that Joan’s female subjectivity is constructed through her rebellious performance and rearticulation of female gender roles and writing.Women are not passive performers acting out the female stereotypes but can resignify,reappropriate and misappropriate female gender norms in order to exert their subjectivity and resist the patriarchal suppression.Writing and rewriting expose the artificial nature of the gender roles and patriarchal ideology,which defies the gender hierarchy and enables the construction of multiple and fluid subjectivity of both genders.In this sense,it shows an optimistic outlook of reconciliation and a harmonious relationship between men and women.