Reclaiming the Gorgon's Gaze: Gender Performativity, Agency, and Resistance in Natalie Haynes's Stone Blind

Abstract

The article provides a thorough feminist examination of contemporary novel Stone Blind by writer Natalie Haynes, based on the theory formulated by Judith Butler, gender performativity. The analysis explores the ways in which Haynes's retelling of the Medusa myth challenges to the patriarchy, upsets traditional gender binaries and re-enacts female agency in an oppressive power structure. The research examines the characters' performances of gender, linguistic choices and narratives through close textual analysis and discourse analysis to reveal the underlying power and ideology in the scene. Analysis shows how Stone Blind challenges the essentialist ideas of gender, questions the power dynamics of heteronormativity, and offers other possible ideas of empowered womanhood via solidarity, resistance, and self-determination. The use of a multi-perspectival narrative structure is a way of problematizing the male tradition of myth and of highlighting the unheard voices of women. The research project is important to feminist literary criticism and gender studies because it shows that the contemporary mythological retellings can be used as places of cultural resistance and transformation. The results show that Stone Blind not only reclaims Medusa's story, but also offers a framework of how literature can be used to problematize and challenge patriarchal ideas and ideals, and how it can help to promote other narratives, such as those of social justice, gender equality, and narrative sovereignty.