Complicating Logics of Gender in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Twelfth Night-2

Chapter 2: Elusive Objects of Desire in Twelfth Night In contrast to Macbeth, which is set in a warrior culture and coded in masculine imagery of violence, ambition and honor, Twelfth Night is a comedy that deals in terms of courtly romance and the carnivalesque. In spite of these differences, Twelfth Night introduces a paradox similar to the one in Macbeth: as Macbeth evokes two separate spheres of manhood, one narrowly linked to masculinity and the other associated with humanity as a whole, Twelfth Night presents two contrasting views in its depiction of desire. On the one hand, the play presents a “festive” logic that moves from tension to resolution and suggests that the only valid kind of desire is between a man and a woman. However, the play simultaneously depicts non-normative paths of desire that undermine this two-gender logic by alluding to the constructed nature of gender categories. For years critics have debated the implications of Viola’s cross-dressing in Twelfth Night and whether it ultimately challenges or reinforces a patriarchal two-gender hierarchy. In his 1959 book Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy, C. L. Barber argues, “the most fundamental distinction the play brings home to us is the difference between men and women… The disguising of a girl as a boy… is exploited so as to renew in a special way our sense of the difference” (277–8). In Barber’s view, Viola’s cross-dressing is not merely unproblematic to patriarchal logic; it “renews in a special way” the differences that comprise this logic’s backbone. Barber reaches his interpretation of Twelfth Night by analyzing the play’s structure, which he describes as “festive.” In his view, all of Shakespeare’s comedies follow a variation of this structure, which involves “a basic movement… through release to clarification” (2). Barber outlines this structure by describing how it manifested itself in the holiday traditions of Elizabethan England. These traditions involved periods of revelry and misrule that temporarily overthrew the social order. Blurring the lines between categories of gender and social class, participants cross-dressed and enacted role reversals in which low-class citizens temporarily reigned as authority figures. According to Barber, this transitory chaos allowed participants to release their pent up energies and desires, a liberation that fueled a “clarification” or a heightened awareness of the relationship between man and nature. By translating holidays onto the stage, “festive” plays extended this awareness and enabled audiences to “becom[e] conscious of holiday itself in a new way”—that is, of its temporary, unstable nature and the ultimate value of social order (7). 11 Barber’s assessment of holiday traditions and recognition of their structural similarity to Shakespeare’s comedies illuminate his claim that Twelfth Night “brings home” the “fundamental distinction” between men and women. He explains, “Just as a… reversal of social roles need not threaten the social structure, but can serve instead to consolidate it, so a temporary, playful reversal of sexual roles can renew the meaning of the normal relation” (278). The nature of this “normal relation” is illustrated in his discussion of the final scene of Twelfth Night, which depicts two heterosexual pairings. Referring to Olivia’s misguided infatuation with Cesario—really the cross-dressed Viola—Sebastian says, “So comes it, lady, you have been mistook. / But nature to her bias drew in that” (5.1.252–3). Barber interprets this “bias” as “the general force which has shaped particular developments [in the play],” arguing that Sebastian’s words reflect an awareness of the “festive” form that guides human experience through confusion to resolution (279). Barber goes on to argue that Sebastian’s subsequent observation that Olivia is “betrothed both to a maid and man” reflects a recognition as to “how much the sexes differ yet how much 11 Barber’s perspective reflects Thomas Aquinas’ theory of natural law, which viewed social order as divinely ordained, mirroring God’s separation of man from woman and human from beast. This theory fueled an understanding of social divisions as natural and good. See Daston’s essay for an overview of how Aquinas’ theory influenced early modern thought. they have in common, how everyone who is fully alive has qualities of both” (5.1.254) (279). Barber’s assessment of Sebastian’s words evokes the twofold awareness that he argues the “festive” form produced in early modern audiences—an awareness of both “natural” disorder and the sanctity of social order. In his 1988 essay “Fiction and Friction,” Steven Greenblatt challenges Barber’s reading of Twelfth Night. Referencing the Galenic one-sex model of the body, Greenblatt characterizes Viola’s cross-dressing—and the greater phenomenon of cross-dressing on the Elizabethan stage—as a subversive practice that reminded early modern audiences of the fluidity of sex and the constructed nature of gender. Greenblatt argues that the movement of Viola through the identity of Cesario and back to her “true” womanly self mirrors the early modern belief that boys pass through “effeminate” stages—following a trajectory from “defective to perfect”—before reaching their superior male selves (78, 81). In Greenblatt’s view, the “clarification” that Barber reads in the final scene—the image of union and harmony—is more dreamlike and elusive than the figure of Cesario. Both Greenblatt and Barber recognize that the gender-bending in Twelfth Night depicts the similarities between men and women; however, they come to opposing conclusions about the effect that this portrayal had on audiences. While Barber sees Viola’s disguise—suggestive of the continuities between men and women—as a “temporary, playful reversal” that ultimately reinforces the boundary between the genders, Greenblatt argues that it highlights the instability of this line. Malvolio’s description of Cesario in Act I inconclusively welcomes the interpretations of both Barber and Greenblatt. Malvolio describes the youth to Olivia as “Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis almost an apple. 'Tis with him in standing water between boy and man” (1.5.139–142). While Malvolio does not directly reference Cesario’s gender, his description of the threshold between boy and man evokes the Galenic notion that adolescent boys pass through “effeminate” stages, a reference that may have reminded audiences of Cesario’s androgyny. This suggestion is carried out in the metaphors that Malvolio goes on to use: describing Cesario as a pea bud that is not yet a pod and an apple that is not quite ripe—entities that serve no purpose besides evolving into their full forms—Malvolio reflects the Galenic belief that the transition into manhood follows a trajectory from “defective to perfect.” Furthermore, the state of in-betweenness—of “standing water”—that Malvolio observes is suggestive of a hermaphroditic body that contains a balance of male and female elements. When regarded through the lens of Greenblatt’s essay, these allusions to continuity across gender categories destabilize the line separating men from women. However, Malvolio’s description also reflects the “festive” form and thereby re-stabilizes two-gender logic. The movement from “defective to perfect” that his metaphors describe is analogous to the movement through chaos to “clarification” that Barber sees in holiday traditions. Furthermore, “standing water” indicates a state of suspension—a liminal space in which movement has stopped—which mirrors the suspension of norms that these traditions brought about. When viewed through Barber’s “festive” lens, Malvolio’s words confirm that Viola’s cross-dressing is truly a “temporary, playful reversal” of norms that ultimately reinforces the “clarification” of the play’s resolution and the stability of the two-gender distinction. In his essay “Gender Trouble and Twelfth Night,” Casey Charles takes a new approach in his assessment of Viola’s cross-dressing. Instead of focusing on the figure of Cesario, Charles analyzes the erotic encounters that this figure induces. He builds his argument off of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, in which she argues that gender identities are not fixed, but rather produced through performance and legitimized by patriarchal structures that perpetually silence alternate possibilities. Butler presents parody—specifically drag—as a mode by which people can challenge these structures by performing genders and exploring sexualities beyond those deemed “normal.” Applying this idea to Twelfth Night, Charles argues that the cross-dressed performance of Viola has the desired effect of Butler’s drag because it leads to non-normative sexual encounters that reveal gender identities to be “staged, performed, and ‘playable’ by either sex” (130). 12 Taking cue from Charles’ approach, my ensuing discussion of Twelfth Night upholds and underscores the inextricable link between gender and desire. As Greenblatt notes, the play’s “initiatory design” appeals to audiences’ awareness of social expectations for desire: it “invites [them] to envisage the unification of court and household through the marriage of their symbolic heads, Orsino and Olivia” (68). The path leading to this unification is one of masculine conquest, as it requires that Orsino “tak[e] possession” of Olivia—the “eligible, perfectly independent maiden prize” (Greenblatt, 69). These expectations are displayed through Orsino’s language when he describes his desire for Olivia. Hyperbolically professing the power of her beauty, Orsino declares that the moment he first saw Olivia he was “turned into a hart” and has since been hunted by the “fell and cruel hounds” of his desires (1.1.20–1). 13 Carrying on this hunting imagery, Orsino fantasizes about what Olivia will be like …. when the rich golden shaft 12 Charles notes that the Elizabethan convention of using male actors for both male and female parts heightens this effect (123-4). 13 Orsino’s words evoke the myth of Diana and Acteaon, a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which a hunter is transformed into a deer and killed by his own hounds after he accidentally sees Diana, the chaste Roman goddess, bathing in the nude. Hath killed the flock of all affections else That live in her—when liver, brain and heart, These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and filled Her sweet perfections with one self king! (1.1.34–8) Orsino imagines himself attaining Olivia’s love by “kill[ing] the flock” of all her other “affections,” that is, by eliminating all of her feelings for other people. Orsino will replace these multiple affections with “one self king,” a replacement that will render all aspects of her person “supplied” and “filled.” In addition to reflecting the patriarchal notion that men must control and contain woman, Orsino’s language suggests a concept of love that aligns with Barber’s formula for thinking about holiday traditions. The “affections” that Orsino imagines eliminating reflect the pent up desires that holiday traditions were thought to release. Moreover, the unity and fulfillment achieved by marriage in Orsino’s account mirrors the ensuing order and “clarification.” The play’s inaugural depiction of Olivia unveils a challenge to Orsino’s patriarchal fantasies: Valentino tells Orsino that the duchess has vowed not to show her face for seven years following the death of her brother. Instead, “like a cloistress” she …. will veilèd walk And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine—all this to season A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting in her sad remembrance. (1.1.27–31) This description suggests that Olivia is actively circumventing Orsino’s attempts at courting her. Her grief is not something she is enduring, but rather something she is creating and maintaining—she is “water[ing]…her chamber” with “eye-offending brine” to keep her love for her brother “fresh” and “lasting.” This image casts Olivia as an independent agent who is actively resisting the expectation of marriage. While the juxtaposition between Orsino’s theatrical expressions of desire and Olivia’s stubborn independence establishes a simple conflict that heightens rather than weakens a heteronormative concept of desire, a closer look at Orsino’s language reveals a curious complication. In his opening monologue he exclaims, O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there, Of what validity and pitch so e’er, But falls into abatement and low price Even in a minute! (1.1.9–14) Orsino’s declaration “O spirit of love” evokes a lover’s outburst to a loved one: it would seem natural for Orsino to exclaim “O Olivia!” as an expression of his desire. However, Orsino does not go on to discuss Olivia, but rather passionately describes the experience of being in love, comparing it to an ocean that ceaselessly swallows and dilutes the value of everything it encounters. Evoking a reversal of Olivia’s salty tears, which she used to preserve her brother’s memory and her independence, the saltwater in this metaphor has power over Orsino, as it swallows and reduces him. Recalling the discrepant behavior of blood in the metaphors of Macbeth, this dual conduct of saltwater introduces a slipperiness to Twelfth Night that resists decisive, comprehensive interpretation. 14 Orsino and Olivia’s shared interest in the ambiguously sexed Cesario and the erotic language that they use to describe him further complicate the heteronormative logic of the play. After knowing him for just three days, Orsino proclaims to Cesario, “Thou know’st no less but all. I have unclasped / To thee the book even of my secret soul” (1.4.12–3). Orsino’s language evokes a heterosexual encounter: he has “unclasped” himself to the youth, giving Cesario access to his previously closed off interior self. Orsino goes on to admire Cesario’s features, observing, … Diana's lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman's part. (1.5.30-3) Beholding a Diana who does not elude his gaze—which seems to linger erotically—Orsino describes Cesario with a specificity that his descriptions of Olivia lacked. In a reversal of the gender roles implied by his previous words, Orsino now casts Cesario as a woman, hinting at the female anatomy with the terms “organ” and “part.” This shift destabilizes the boundary separating men from women and complicates the nature of Orsino’s desire. Olivia is similarly intrigued by Cesario: she says after her first interaction with him, “Methinks I feel this youth's perfections / With an invisible and subtle stealth / To creep in at mine eyes” (1.5.266–8). Olivia’s use of the word “perfections” recollects Orsino’s earlier use of the word, when he described himself “suppl[ying] and fill[ing]” the “sweet perfections” of 14 This saltwater also evokes the sea that washes Viola onto the shore of Illyria, and presumably drowns her brother; see 1.2.1–16. Olivia. While Olivia’s “perfections” connote a void to be filled, those of Cesario are doing the filling: they are “creeping in” at Olivia and penetrating her being. In a displaced realization of Orsino’s fantasy and a continuation of Orsino’s “unclasp[ing],” this description evokes a heterosexual encounter in which Cesario is the man. However, Olivia’s use of the words “invisible” and “subtle” to describe the effect that Cesario has on her suggests that there is an aspect to him—or to her attraction to him—that she is unable to pin down. This vagueness alludes to Cesario’s androgynous appearance and the elusive in-betweenness of Malvolio’s descriptions. From Viola’s point of view, the messy paths of desire that her disguise has created are frustrating but ultimately inconsequential. When she suspects Olivia’s attraction she exclaims, “Poor lady, she were better love a dream!” (2.2.24–5). By affiliating her cross-dressed self with a “dream,” Viola emphasizes the deviation from reality that Cesario represents—to her, the disguise is a temporary illusion. She goes on to lament her convoluted situation: My master loves [Olivia] dearly, And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am woman, now, alas the day, What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! O time! Thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie. (2.2.31–9) Viola’s concluding plea for time to “untangle” the “knot” of her circumstances affirms the “festive” perspective that her disguise and the confusion it has caused are passing states of disorder that will ultimately be resolved. In her view, this “knot” is comprised of the different paths of desire that are refusing to be fulfilled, signified by Olivia’s “thriftless sighs” and Viola’s “desperate” condition. These longings correspond to the energies and desires relieved through Elizabethan holiday traditions. As Jean Howard notes, “there is no doubt in the audience’s mind of [Viola’s] heterosexual sexual orientation or her properly ‘feminine’ subjectivity” (431). Indeed, Viola’s descriptions of her hermaphroditic self as a “poor monster” reminds the audience of the distinction between her “true” self and her disguise. She also maintains her heterosexuality by resisting Olivia’s advances and remaining steadfast in her desire for Orsino: when she sets off to woo Olivia on Orsino’s behalf she says, “Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (1.4.41). Furthermore, Viola reflects an internalization of social expectations for desire when she characterizes Olivia’s desire as “mistaken.” Reflecting the heteronormative belief that desire is only possible between a man and a woman, Viola’s characterization invalidates the possibility of lesbian attraction. Interestingly, Viola’s attitude throughout the play upholds a two-gender framework that supports Barber’s interpretation of her cross-dressing as a “festive” deviation that ultimately reinforces the “fundamental distinction” between men and women. However, Viola’s perspective is not the only one reflected in the play; her constant reminders to the audience of her feminine identity do not affect other characters’ perceptions of Cesario. Rather, both Orsino and Olivia view Cesario as a subject and their gazes shape him into one. Shakespeare alludes to the transformative power of the human gaze in a metatheatrical moment when Olivia says to Viola/Cesario, “I would you were as I would have you be” (3.1.133). 15 A reversal of her earlier description of Cesario “creep[ing] in at her eyes,” in which Cesario has the power, Olivia’s words disrupt notions of objectivity, a disruption that in turn destabilizes the essentiality of identity. This destabilization continues after Cesario’s “true” identity is revealed. In his final words of the play, Orsino says, Cesario, come— For so you shall be while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen. (5.1.372–5) By continuing to use the page’s name and insisting that Viola remain Cesario while in a man’s clothing, Orsino asserts that Viola’s “true” identity does not invalidate the reality of Cesario. Furthermore, in addition to referring to the wife of a king or nobleman, the word “queen” has historically held transgressive implications; it has been used to refer to prostitutes, cross-dressers, and effeminate male homosexuals (“queen, n.”) (“quean, n.”). Thus in addition to troubling the line between objective reality and subjective perception, Orsino’s final words—the last words of the play before Feste’s ending song—“bring home” an ultimate indistinction of categories of gender and sexuality. A two-gender logic shapes the expectations for gender relations in Twelfth Night, and from Barber’s point of view, incorporates the ambiguity produced by Cesario’s transvestitism into the play’s “general force”—a normative force that restores and underscores social order. However, Barber’s reading only rings true if Cesario is never really Cesario, but merely a temporary illusion produced by Viola’s disguise. Unfortunately for Barber, this truth depends on 15 For an insightful deconstructive reading of Viola and Olivia’s exchange, see Charles 134. a clear-cut notion of the essentiality of identity—specifically gender identity—which the play unsettles more than it bolsters. The erotic encounters that emerge as a result of Viola’s crossdressing cast Cesario as a real subject and thereby undermine the notion that he is merely an illusion produced through Viola’s performance. Presenting Cesario as an individual distinct from Viola, Twelfth Night invites audiences to consider his gender identity. Though he wears a man’s clothes and performs a man’s work, other characters recognize womanly aspects in him. Furthermore, the ambiguity and inbetweenness that their descriptions of him convey suggest a hybrid gender that defies the categories man and woman. Evoking the androgyny represented in the male characters of Macbeth, Cesario’s inscrutable gender challenges the two-gender binary suggested by the heteronormative structure of the play and evokes a fluid, Galenic model of sexual difference. Chapter 3: Adding A Twist Macbeth and Twelfth Night both call upon the Galenic, one-sex model of the body by depicting androgynous characters who reflect syntheses of manly and womanly aspects. The language of Macbeth suggests that its male characters—Duncan, Macbeth and Macduff—all possess feminine traits, associated with the womanly fluids of menstrual blood, maternal milk, and motherly tears. In Twelfth Night, androgyny is evoked through the figure of Cesario, whose ambiguous appearance suggests a blend of masculine and feminine aspects and whose hybrid identity is validated by the lingering gazes of other characters. The androgynous representations in both plays undermine the two-gender logic that structures their corresponding social and political orders in a manner that reflects the negotiations that were taking place in early modern London. As economic and scientific developments caused the city’s population to become more diverse, people were forced to rethink the categories that shaped their social order. Scholars note that the theatre played an important role in these negotiations: Jean Howard argues that the formation of the “middle-class female playgoer” reflected a transgression of “physical and social boundaries of the middle-class woman’s domestic containment” (440). In a related vein, Steven Mullaney argues that the theatre’s physical location on the margins of London enabled it to critically regard and reflect the “limits and contradictions” of the city’s social order (38). The social changes reflected and incited by early modern theatre are analogous to ongoing developments in America that call into question oppressive beliefs and institutions. One manifestation of these developments are movements advocating for social change on the bases of notions of gender and sexuality. In spite of much progress, these movements have been held back by the demands of the U.S. identitarian political system, which forces people to group and label themselves in order to be recognized and validated in society (Garber 281). As Judith Butler notes, these demands have caused many feminist groups to cling to the notion that women is a “seamless category,” an attachment that conflicts with other groups that advocate for nonnormative manifestations of femininity (4). Similar tensions have emerged within LGBT movements, as activists who argue that homosexuality is innate and can be “scientifically” proven promote a dimorphic idea of sexuality that excludes and delegitimizes alternate sexual identities. 16 In Gender Trouble, Butler argues that the identitarian political system is an oppressive patriarchal product and that feminists must discard notions of gender identity altogether. However, others have argued that such an eradication might impede rather than aid feminist aims. In her 1994 essay “Sexualities without Genders and Other Queer Utopias,” Biddy Martin writes that an eradication of gender categories might result in an “evacuation of interiority… and too exclusive an understanding of psychic life” that could “impoverish the language [feminists] have available for thinking about social construction” (105). Sandra Lipsitz Bem argues along similar lines in her essay “Dismantling Gender Polarization and Compulsory Heterosexuality: Should We Turn the Volume Down or Up?” Bem writes that she cannot foresee how an elimination of categories of identity would advance feminist and queer movements. In an interesting move, Bem proposes that a better approach to undermining oppressive paradigms of gender and sexuality might be to “proliferate” categories of gender—and of other identities—so that binary distinctions lose their power (334). In her view, this shift is already taking place; she writes, 16 See Garber, chapter 11. “what is happening… is not the silence of turning the volume down on difference and diversity but the cacophony of sound (and also of conflict) that comes from having finally turned the volume up on the many multidimensional voices that have been silenced far too long—including not just lesbians, gay men, and now bisexuals, but the much more color-full Crayola kaleidoscope of, for example, fto-m and m-to-f transgendered people, lipstick lesbians, butches, baby butches, stone butches, femmes, butchy femmes, bulldaggers…. And so on and so forth ad (perhaps) infinitum” (334). By describing human gender as a “kaleidoscope” filled with categories that could number to “infinitum,” Bem introduces a new way of thinking about identity that reconciles the aforementioned tensions within feminist and LGBT movements. On the one hand, Bem appeals to Martin’s concern that Butler’s theories might lead to an “impoverish[ment]” in feminist discourse when she lists and validates non-normative gender categories. On the other hand, by suggesting that these categories could multiply to “infinitum,” Bem challenges identitarian logic, reflecting how human reality refuses to be broken up into distinct and quantifiable pieces. Marjorie Garber similarly presents a useful model through her concept of the “third,” which she begins to explore in Vested Interests, published in 1991. In this book, she examines the transvestite, a figure that she believes has the capacity to subvert hegemonic modes of thinking about both gender and sexuality by calling into question the categories woman, man, heterosexual and homosexual. In her view, the subversive potential of the transvestite is characteristic of the “third,” a concept she applies to other in-between types that call into question preexisting binaries. 17 In Vice Versa Garber uses her concept of the “third” to articulate a theory of bisexuality, which traditionally refers to a person’s capacity to be attracted to both men and women. In this sense, bisexuality reflects a combination of homo- and heterosexuality, a logic that has led twodimensional models such as the Kinsey scale and the Klein grid to depict it as a flat, middle space. Arguing that bisexuality defies such representation, Garber says, … what if we were to begin with the category “sexuality” (or “desire”) rather than with a binary opposition between homosexual and heterosexual, or same-sex and opposite-sex partners? What if, in an attempt to understand this version of the “third,” we were to turn not to a two-dimensional model (the scale, the grid) but rather to a model that incorporated a third dimension, and that also made the question of two-versus-one, or inside/outside, essentially moot? (30) Inviting readers to reconsider their ideas about sexuality, Garber proposes a model of bisexuality that begins with the all-encompassing category of “desire” rather than the mutually exclusive poles of homo- and hetero-. With this move, Garber indicates that “thirds” are not merely mixtures that can be represented as the middle spaces of scales or grids. Rather, “thirds” transcend the two-dimensional spaces of these models and distort the rigid categories that they present. To reflect the destabilizing effect that “thirds” have on binary systems, Garber presents a new, three-dimensional model for thinking about the “third” of bisexuality: 17 For example, Garber applies this concept to the Third World, which originally referred to countries and regions that were not a part of the West or the Communist bloc during the Cold War. According to Garber, this category destabilized the binary logic that participants in the Cold War upheld, which relied upon the rigid distinction delineating us from them (11). What I propose is a model closer to the so-called Möbius strip, a topological space that can be visualized by pasting together the ends of a rectangular strip after having first given one of the ends a half twist. It thus has only one side, not two, and if split down the middle, remains in one piece. Thus, we have no “third” but one space that incorporates the concepts of “two,” “one,” and “three” (two apparent “sides,” illusionistically; one continuous surface, and a third dimension in space). (30) The distortion of two-dimensional space that Garber describes reflects the destabilizing effect that “thirds” have on binary systems. When creating a model of the Möbius strip, one literally eliminates a binary: by bringing together the ends of a rectangular strip, one causes these ends to disappear, replacing “two” with “one.” As Garber explains, the end result is “no ‘third’ but one space”—a continuous surface that resists segmentation. This description conflates bisexuality with desire as a whole: the “third” of bisexuality becomes concurrent with the category of sexuality, or human desire, out of which it arose. Garber again evokes a conflation of bisexuality and desire when she discusses the futility of efforts to find biological “proof” of sexual identities. She writes, “Ultimately… the object of scrutiny will escape even the most vigilant and searching eyes. Bisexuality undoes statistics, confounds dimorphism, creates a volatile set of subjects who will not stay put in neat and stable categories. No calipers will fit the shape of desire, which remains, thankfully, unquantifiable by even the most finely tested instruments” (283). While the “object of scrutiny” in this passage initially refers to bisexuality, Garber skillfully shifts its reference to desire, which she describes as a phenomenon that defies containment by any physical shape or quantity. With this move, Garber suggests that the inscrutable nature of bisexuality reflects, and is derived from, the stubborn elusiveness of human desire as a whole. Garber’s Möbius strip, like Bem’s kaleidoscope, is particularly useful for the poststructuralist project of undermining oppressive binaries because it conveys how categories of gender and sexuality are derived from the same human whole—an all-inclusive whole that defies segmentation. Furthermore, the Möbius strip induces meta-awareness in its viewers of the incompatibility of reality and perception: while one can look at it, and even recreate it with one’s own hands, it simultaneously defies comprehension. By using the Möbius strip to explain her concept of the “third” Garber demonstrates the tension between human classification systems and in-between spaces—such androgynous figures or bisexual desires—that stubbornly refuse to be pinned down. The imagery of androgyny in Shakespeare’s plays reflect Garber’s way of thinking about the “third.” As I discussed in the previous two chapters, the androgynous characters in Macbeth and Twelfth Night call to mind the Galenic, one-sex model which classifies bodies on a continuum rather than a binary. Through this association, Shakespeare’s androgynous representations reflect the biological “truth” that all bodies are androgynous and the gender binary is merely a construct. Shakespeare reflects this Galenic “truth” through his portrayal of two spheres of manhood in Macbeth. In one sphere, manhood is defined through two-gender logic; the Macbeths closely adhere to this logic that ultimately induces the downward trajectory of Macbeth’s morality. In turn, the second sphere corresponds to the one-sex model, as Duncan, its model man, is depicted as a hybrid of masculine and feminine qualities. By conflating this androgynous figure with the virtues of the human race as a whole, Shakespeare reflects how “thirds” are not unnatural mixtures derived from preexisting, pure categories, but indicative of a continuity that precedes classification. Another manifestation of Garber’s “third” emerges through the imagery of Macbeth, specifically through the symbol of blood. As I observed in Chapter 1, the significance of blood shifts from one metaphor to the next and these changes undermine the integrity of the play’s symbolic logic. Just as leaking wounds signify both strength and weakness on the battlefield, a distinction dependent on the soldier who bears them, blood corresponds to each of Ramsey’s spheres of manhood in different descriptions throughout Macbeth. This paradox is presented most plainly when Macbeth describes Duncan’s blood as a nourishing fluid whose movement has been stopped, and then goes on to construe it as a sign of the king’s effeminate weakness, expelled by the murderers’ brutal penetration of his body. The movement of the symbol of blood from one sphere of manhood to the other undermines the line that distinguishes these two spheres; the fluid thus becomes another “third” that deconstructs a binary. The blood in Macbeth corresponds to the saltwater in Twelfth Night, which similarly resists comprehensive interpretation. At times it is the ocean that engulfs and destroys; it washes Viola onto the shores of Illyria and supposedly drowns her brother and elsewhere is cast as the “spirit of love” that swallows and diminishes Orsino. But saltwater also emerges as the “brin[y]” tears that Olivia uses to “keep fresh” her brother’s memory; in this image it is a tool rather than an agent and it preserves rather than destroys. The slipperiness of saltwater in Twelfth Night evokes the elusiveness of Garber’s Möbius strip—it defies the human impulse to understand and classify. The language surrounding Cesario in the last scene of Twelfth Night similarly corresponds to Garber’s Möbius strip. In the final moments of the play, Cesario and Sebastian stand side-by-side while the other characters—and the audience—behold them together for the first time. Antonio wonders at Sebastian, “How have you made division of yourself? / An apple cleft in two is not more twin / Than these two creatures” (5.1.215–7). Antonio’s description of the twins as an “apple cleft in two” reflects Garber’s Möbius strip, as it alludes to how the gender binary is derived from the preexisting class of humanity as a whole. Interestingly mirroring Antonio’s description, Orsino exclaims, “One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons / A natural perspective, that is and that is not!” (5.1.208). While Antonio reports one creature—Sebastian—that has been “cleft in two,” Orsino describes two distinct individuals who are outwardly identical, an appearance that makes him question what is real, or “natural,” and what is an illusion. However, his words implicitly invoke the figure of Cesario— the androgynous object of his desire—who was, throughout the play, “two persons” embodied by one. In a cyclical manner, this “one” becomes the “apple” that Antonio describes, confirming that the androgynous “third” is one and the same with the greater human whole. Conclusion While researching and drafting this thesis I very aware of that which didn’t fit. This awareness was spawned, in part, by the first text I encountered—Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger. In this study, Douglas examines the ways people and societies deal with phenomena that challenge their belief systems, using “dirt” as a metaphor to refer to anything that defies classification. Douglas proposes that systems maintain their integrity by actively controlling and repressing “dirt,” as such work clarifies and strengthens the categories upon which systems are based. Douglas’ text was central to the development of my ideas, and led me to consider the strands of thought that I discarded in order to create this final product as examples of “dirt.” One such strand is the figures of the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, whose androgynous bodies incited my interest in the play’s depiction of gender. These figures defy the distinction between man and woman as well as the boundary separating fantastical from real, and thereby correspond to Douglas’ “dirt” as well as Garber’s notion of the “third.” The Weird Sisters also challenged—and thereby strengthened—the boundary separating this thesis from that which it almost was: an analysis of Macbeth and Twelfth Night through the lens of a particular idea presented in Purity and Danger. Douglas presents this idea in her chapter titled “Powers and Dangers,” in which she writes, Granted that disorder spoils pattern, it also provides the material of pattern. Order implies restriction; from all possible relations a limited set has been used. So disorder by implication is unlimited, no pattern has been realized in it, but its potential for patterning is indefinite. This is why, though we seek to create order, we do not simply condemn disorder. We recognize that it is destructive to existing patterns; also that it has potentiality. It symbolizes both danger and power (95) Here, Douglas acknowledges that “dirt”—or disorder—is not merely destructive and threatening, but that it also has creative potentiality. She recognizes disorder as the source of all meaning; the material out of which all patterns of thought emerge. Contemplating the atmospheric differences between Macbeth and Twelfth Night, I began to regard these plays as reflective of the two sides of the coin of Douglas’ “dirt.” On the one hand, I saw Macbeth as a world in which ambiguity is a threat, a perspective upheld by the Macbeths and seemingly verified by the witches, who represent a fusion of ambiguity and apocalyptic danger. In contrast, I saw in Twelfth Night an allusion to the creative potentiality of disorder, embodied in the figure of Cesario, who points to the exciting possibilities for desire that lie beyond the two-gender system. While I abandoned this framework in favor of one that sees similarities rather than differences in the plays’ depictions of androgyny, it shaped the concepts I explored as well as my consideration of my writing process. Douglas’ words rang in my ears when I studied Garber’s Möbius strip, a model that “spoils” previous concepts but also “provides the material” for new patterns of thought. 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