Differences underlying similarities. Divergent types of characters accentuating gender roles in Twain's Eve's Diary and Munro's Boys and Girls

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Graz, course: InterAmerica, InterSectional Literature, language: English, abstract: This term paper will argue that the two texts from Twain and Munro are equal in their attempt to prove the way gender roles are constructed and in their criticizing of those - notwithstanding their own differences in time, age, manner and tone, and so they allow us to ask the question of how they affect the characters, and ultimately, the readers. As Judith Butler says in Gender Trouble, "Originally intended to dispute the biology-is-destiny formulation, the distinction between sex and gender serves the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed (...)" (9). Both writers are aware that the differences between men and woman exist, but what they are interested in is the way in which these differences become ingrained in our society to a point where it is difficult for an individual to break free from the boundaries and establish oneself as a person, rather than identifying primarily as "male" or "female".