Disruption of Gender Binary: A Feminist Study of Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop

Abstract

Willa Cather'sDeath Comes for the Archbishopconcerns on how Cather dismantles the aged long gender binary which was pervasively prevalent in the society. Cather's construction of Father Latour's identity which oscillates between norms of feminity and masculinity presents gender as an assembled and assumed costume rather than an essential expression of one's sex. Cather works to retheorize the notion ofgender by depicting the contradictionary character of Latour. Moreover, she projects female characters who deny to yield before patriarchy. Female characters like Dona Isabella, Magdalena and Sada work out to dismantle the walls erected by patriarchy. They do not fit in the role models devised by the society for the whole femalegender. Theirincessant toil to disrupt discriminating attitude towards female and to assert their individuality in the society blur gender binary. Patriarchy always desired to relegate female sex from the mainstream and they are given very derogatory role models in the society. But Cather's documentation of characters and their role play subverts the gender binary. Explicating the fact thatgender is socially constructed to subjugate female and to prolong the domination of male over female.