The Mirrored Room : gender identity and the postmodern body in Jennifer Egan

Abstract

The aim is to study the impact of human culture on human identity in Egan's works . Egan’s novelistic examination of American society to be of remarkable interest to “human culture” and approximation to “human identity,” particularly so in that it offers a harsh depiction of all the construction, representation, and destruction of themselves . It's resorted to some outstanding uses of the mirror in literary history. First, the tale of Echo and Narcissus. Conversely, Lewis Carroll’s "Through the Looking-Glass", and "What Alice Found There" introduces the mirror as a gate to an alternative reality. Lastly, it's turned to Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection,” a short story in which the mirror appears to act as though it were a drastically narrow focalising element, evincing the limitations of a realist approach to writing. The work focuses on the symbol of the mirror as it appears in "Look at Me", on recent theories of identity to attempt to show how the individuals of the novel are constructed in relation to the mirrored room. They are related the processes of construction and representation of identities at work within the character of Charlotte Swenson to contemporary readings within the fields of gender, queer, and body studies.

O obxectivo é estudar o impacto da cultura humana sobre a identidade humana nas obras de Egan. O exame novedoso por Egan da sociedade estadounidense é de interese notable para a "cultura humana" e a súa aproximación á "identidade humana", particularmente porque ofrece unha dura representación de toda a construción, representación e destrución de si mesmos. Recórrese a algúns usos destacados do espello na historia literaria. En primeiro lugar, a historia de "Echo e Narcissus". Por outra banda "Through the Mirror-Glass" de Lewis Carroll, e "Alicia Found There" introduce o espello como unha porta a unha realidade alternativa. Finalmente, vólvese a Virxinia Wolf "The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection", unha pequena historia na que aparece o espello para actuar coma se fose un elemento de focalización estreitamente reducido, evocando as limitacións dun realista achegamento á escritura. O traballo céntrase no símbolo do espello como aparece en "Look me", para intentar mostrar como se constrúen os individuos da novela en relación coa sala dos espellos. Relaciónanse os procesos de construción e representación de identidades no traballo dentro do personaxe de Charlotte Swenson e ás lecturas contemporáneas do corpo dentro dos campos de xénero, "queer" e estudos do corpo.