The present dissertation attempts to study Virginia Woolf’s To the Light House and Orlando in terms of Judith Butler’s concepts of gender, performativity, and agency. Woolf examines women and their struggles and positions in literary history, and their needs for independence. She is among the founders of Modernist movement which also includes T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pond. Themes in her works consist of gender relations, class hierarchy and the consequences of war. In most of her novels she moves away from the use of plot and character and instead she emphasizes the psychological aspects of her characters. It would thus be of interest to see how the novels and their characters developed Butler’s concepts. Butler is a prominent figure in the field of gender studies and she is under the influence of Derrida and Foucault; therefore, one could call her that she is a post-structuralist. Two of her great works are Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matters, where she demonstrates the gender issues and her other significant concepts such as gender identity, agency, and queer theory. Consequently, there is a confluence between Butler’s critical theory and the development of Woolf’s female characters, and this dissertation seeks to explore that relationship by closely reading Woolf’s novels in terms of her concepts.
