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#Tales of androgyny guide how to
Théophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de MaupinġThe allure of androgyny is that it suggests both genders, but in this indeterminacy, is it possible for the appearance of both to exist simultaneously, or, like an optical illusion, must one gender always take precedence, a constant slipping between foreground and background? This problem of how to read gender ambiguity and how this reading affects desire forms the crux of Six Chapters of a Man’s Life (1903), a novel by the British author Victoria Cross (née Annie Cory, 1868–1952).
#Tales of androgyny guide .exe
Haut de pageĮn vérité, ni l’un ni l’autre de ces deux sexes n’est le mien je n’ai ni la soumission imbécile, ni la timidité, ni les petitesses de la femme je n’ai pas les vices des hommes, leur dégoûtante crapule et leurs penchants brutaux:-je suis d’un troisième sexe à part qui n’a pas encore de nom: au-dessus ou au-dessous, plus défectueux ou supérieur: j’ai le corps et l’âme d’une femme, l’esprit et la force d’un homme, et j’ai trop ou pas assez de l’un et de l’autre pour me pouvoir accoupler avec l’un d’eux. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theories of gender and identity, this article explores how androgyny functions as a primary gender tempered by its opposite-either feminized masculinity or masculinized femininity-and the impossibility of seeing androgyny as a coherent identity outside this gender binary. The male narrator, Cecil, finds himself first attracted to and then frustrated by the ever-shifting gender identity of his female lover, Theodora, who secretly cross-dresses as a man, Theodore, so that they may travel together unmarried. Both the story and the novel focus on the problems of desiring the androgyne. Cross first published an excerpt from this novel in the Decadent journal The Yellow Book, and titled the short-story “Theodora, a Fragment,” which has been reprinted in Elaine Showalter’s anthology Daughters of Decadence. The novel focuses on the impossibility of seeing androgyny as a coherent gender identity instead, androgyny is presented as fragmented and illegible. While Victoria Cross’ novel Six Chapters of a Man’s Life has now largely fallen into obscurity, it has a new relevance in terms of contemporary theories of performativity and gender identity.