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Gender And Identity In Drabble's A Summer Bird-Cage

702 Words3 Pages

“Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out” (Webster, 6). These lines from John Webster’s play “The White Devil” – which inspired the title of Margaret Drabble’s debut novel, A Summer Bird-Cage (1963) – sum up the characters’ quandary and their search for a fulfilling role in life. This paper will examine Drabble’s depiction of the intersection of gender and identity through the perceptions of Sarah Bennett, the authoritative narrator. Through her female narrator’s voice, Drabble endeavors to validate women’s subject position and to counteract the patriarchal gender prejudice. Margaret Drabble enjoyed large female readership, which led Valerie Myer to remark that, “Drabble is the most contemporary of novelists: a whole generation of women readers identifies with her characters, who they feel represent their own problems” (13). The sexual revolution of the sixties, together with the emergence of the feminist movement, has led to the re-evaluation of gender relations. Patricia Waugh comments on the need to challenge the dominant concepts of gender and identity:
If someone has always been defined as an ‘object’ in someone else’s gaze or discourse, then full identity will be conceived in the terms of adopting …show more content…

Despite her Oxford honors degree, she is at a loss and hasn’t figured what she wants to do with her life. Through Sarah’s authoritative narration, Drabble highlights the discrepancies in contemporary woman situation that relate concomitantly to the social constraints entrenched in patriarchal society. When Sarah lunches with her fiancé’s academic friends she feels that despite her degree, her status is undermined because of her

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