Performativity and the Subversion of Constructed Identity: The Representation of Female Identity and Subjectivity in Old Times

To investigate the problematics of the representation of female subjectivity and gender identity in Pinter’s drama, the present research adopts Judith Butler’s poststructuralist feminist views as its theoretical framework and applies them to one of the dramatist’s most celebrated plays, “Old Times”. In her theory, Butler focuses on such issues as the representation, construction and subversion of gender identity as part of her commitment to redress sexual oppression. Rejecting the idea of a substantial internal gender core, Butler promotes her theory of performative gender identity: the idea that gender is constructed through the stylized repetition of some ritual acts. The critic, moreover, locates the site of subversion and agency in such performative acts as parodic repetition and impersonation that displace regulative norms through hyperbole, dissonance and internal confusion. The study of Pinter’s representation of female identity and subjectivity in the light of Butler’s critical theories reveals that the prevailing sociocultural discourses function to naturalize woman’s identity and to introduce heterosexuality and binarized gender identities as the only normal type of sexuality. Pinter’s female characters in “Old Times,” however, challenge the imposed identities and roles through such subversive performative acts as the foregroundation of the constructed nature of the binarized gender identities, the heterosexual matrix of intelligibility, and the relations of coherence and continuity between sex/gender/desire/sexuality. Through their subversive performative acts, Pinter’s female characters also manage to displace the archetypal identities and roles assigned to them through the adoption of such strategies as parodic repetition and impersonation