Performing Male Gender: A Feministic Reading of Jane Smiley’s Good Will

Abstract

To read Smiley's Good Will is to explore the causes of inferior placement of women and to prove patriarchal norms and values as the root causes of it. Liz, Lydia and Annabel, the female characters are the victim of male chauvinistic mindset. Though they seem docile in the beginning, but later they challenge patriarchy and Liz lives separately from her husband and Lydia and Annabel struggle to get the compensation of their cut coat, lost doll and burnt house. Liz as an advocate of women's independence rejects the so-called self-sufficiency provided by her husband. By all her means she attacks the male-controlled religion, myths and ideologies and wants to set herself free from all form of domination and doctrines which are still prevalent in the society as hindrances for the women's project. Bob and Tommy, the macho characters loaded with masculine values whose unacknowledged desire of ruling upon the female has placed the female in inferior position. Despite all female characters’ constant struggle against patriarchal doctrines, their dream never comes true since those doctrines thwart on their project of being free.