Reassertion of Gay Identity in Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man

Abstract

This paperhighlights the tension of competing forces of continuing repression and explore the richness and heterogeneity of the gay identityin Christopher Isherwood’sA SingleMan(1964). The protagonist is lonely and embarrassed regarding his temporary homosexual relationship with his roommate.He consciously presentscontradictory ideas about his own sexualgayidentityexploring heterogeneityby identifying the problems and feeling of isolated homosexuals. In response to his claim ofreassertionregarding his identity, the present paperattempts the text from the perspective of Henri Tajfel and JohnC. Turner’s Social Identity Theory and Judith Butler’s Queer Theory based on Performativity.Social Identity Theoryadvocatesa person’s sense of who he or she is based on his or her group recognitionand identity. Butler’s Performativity states gender is socially constructed through common places,speech acts and non-verbal communication that are performative, in that they serveto define and maintain identities. The research discovershowprotagonist is forced to come to terms with his identity, a process more complicated than simply coming out of the world.Through the reading of novel from abovementionedperspectives, the researcher concludes that homosexualsstill lack conventional resolution toreveal theiractualidentity in society. Keywords: homosexual, contradictory, consciousness, performativity, identity