“Neither of woman nor of man” : gender, drag, and theatrical costume in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette
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"In Charlotte Brontë’s 1853 novel Villette, schoolteacher Lucy Snowe unexpectedly dresses in drag to perform a male role in a “vaudeville de pensionnat,” or boarding school play, using elements of both male and female costume. She later watches what she considers a shocking theatrical performance of professional actress Vashti, whose loosely draped costume and unconfined hair she describes as “neither of woman nor of man” (Brontë 153, 286). Though these women approach the stage with different levels of experience and different costumes, their performances both raise significant questions about the relationship between theatrical costume, gender performance, and identity within the novel, which like many other nineteenth-century works addresses the complexity and stability of identity and closely links identity and gender performance. In order to better comprehend the significance of Lucy’s narrative style and her descriptions of both her own theatrical costume and Vashti’s in relation to the novel’s exploration of gender and identity, these scenes must be investigated through a lens of both a historical understanding of Victorian costume and clothing and a theoretical understanding of gender performance." -- first page
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