Topic > Gender Bending in She's Come Undone - 2029

Gender Bending in She's Come Undone Is Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone, "qualified" to write a female-voiced first-person narrator? After all, as a man, what does he know about women's problems? In this essay I will discuss the issue of "gender-bending" writers and discuss Lamb's use of such a tool. The term "gender-bender" usually refers to a pop singer or pop cult follower "...who deliberately influences an androgynous appearance by wearing sexually ambiguous clothing, makeup, etc. (Ayto and Simpson 81)" Although the authors are not included in this specific definition, we should not overlook the possibility that writers may fall into the category of being a "gender-bender." Applying some of the same characteristics of the definition, I believe that an author can be a "gender-bender" by changing the writer's voice in novels. Wally Lamb would fit into this category, because as a male author, he writes his main character in a female voice. The concept of "gender-bending" authors is not entirely foreign to literature, although it may not apply to the definition presented above. For example, in crime novels written by women, some characters take on different genders than their writers. In the following passage, from the essay "Gender (De)Mystified: Resistance and Recuperation in Hard-Boiled Female Detective Fiction," by Timothy Shuker-Haines and Martha M. Umphrey, we discuss crime author Sue Grafton's ability to write in male person. The persona of Kinsey Millhone [a female character in the book F Is for Fugitive] is essentially male in gender. A woman who has few friends and lives for her work is self-consciously, almost parodically, defined as masculine, as, for example, when she describes her tendency to revel in California's pared-back penal code and textbooks on car theft rather than with textbooks on car theft. engaging in the teatime gossip of a Miss Marple. (Delamater and Prigozy 73) “Gender-bending” also refers to sex-change operations. As in the case of performance artist Kate Bornstein, a graduate of Brown University, who underwent such an operation thirteen years ago. In an article on the school's website, Ms. Bornstein talks about "genre bending," and some of the issues she discusses may also apply to "genre bending" in novels. The way I see gender is a way to express yourself. ...Gender is just a door, as are sexuality, race, and age.