Structuring Gender: A Study of Unidentified Self of Jack in The Confessions of the Fox by Rosenberg

Abstract

The present study is an endeavor to explore the forcefully imposed binary opposition of this world, and the division of human beings on the basis of their sex. This study aims to offer a comprehensive description of gender as a construction of society based on sex as portrayed in Confessions of the Fox. Gender construction starts with birth, sex of a baby becomes its sex category and is supposed to have a constructed gender status through dressing naming and other gender markers. Organizations and institutions reinforced gender expectations from individual’s gender, an institution. It establishes norms for daily expectations incorporated into major social institutions like family ideology and politics. Gender is defined completely constructed by society while sex is a characteristic biologically defined. The author explicates in a well-defined way about the gender as a social construction through Jack, the protagonist of the novel and his difficulties in the whole life because he was not having a constructed gender based on sex. Judith Lorber’s theoretical lens observe this phenomenon of gender; only constructed by the society and one is supposed to meet up all the required fields of settled patterns of society on the basis of gender. The novel addresses the major issue of human beings created by the society. The story of the selected novel shows that how much difficult it is to live in a society where a person is not having a defined and clear role and gender. The present study centers on the role and difficulties of a person who is not defined socially on the base of his sex and gender.