چکیده
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The present study seeks to address Lisa Unger’s In the Blood (2014) and Crazy Love You (2015) in terms of Jacques Derrida's hauntology, which asserts that the effect of the past on the present and the future is undeniable; Judith Butler's gender performativity, which refers to the idea of gender as just an act, or performance in response to social expectations; and Julia Kristeva's mosaic of quotations, referring to the absorption and transformation of texts within texts. The fear of the past forecasting present and future is rampant in the novels of the aforementioned author. The fear of sex changes in the past is hanging with the characters of the novels, giving it a unique stature of being studied in terms of hauntology. Notwithstanding to say, the sex change mentioned here is not that of a biological one. However, the desires and the roots of the protagonists toward sex change are issued; hence, taking recourse to the mosaic of quotations to analyze such issues seems fit. Moreover, the presence of a character named Priss is questioned. The significance of the following study is that no previous research has ever applied mosaic of quotations on two texts within the same novel; it is argued that Unger writes parallel stories in order to stretch her books enough to form a novel. Also, it is the first time the two novels are studied based on gender performativity and hauntology as two complementary concepts. The following study tries to prove that the texts are not completely distinct and original, and also to put an emphasis upon a character's past to bold the impressions it has received for now; in another word, present is haunted by past.
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