Transgressing convention : the dialogic performance of gender and identity in Jackie Kay's Trumpet

This thesis examines how Scottish writer Jackie Kay interrogates the straightforward way that identity is conventionally defined. The core of this analysis questions how power is organised in society and explores the methods marginalised individuals use to negotiate agency. Emphasizing how transgender subjects configure their lives inside dominant heterosexual culture, this thesis explores how the performativity of identity may successfully challenge conventional norms. The thesis argues that Kay's novel Trumpet (1998) presents identity as forever in flux and suggests that such instability may be empowering for transgendered subjects. Referring to contemporary theorists of identity, such as Judith Halberstam, Pierre Bourdieu, Evelyn Hammonds, and Judith Butler, the first chapter examines how power functions in society to privilege heterosexual individuals. The second chapter turns its focus on Trumpet and explores the way Joss performs his identity, and the way his performance is enabled with jazz. This chapter studies Joss's performance in light of Butler's notion of ritualised repetition and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's exploration of the closet. Finally, the third chapter investigates Trumpet's dialogic structure and the way it creates a tense forum among characters who struggle to define transgender identity. Informed by Mikhail Bakhtin, it discusses how Kay disrupts straightforward, monolithic constructions of the self. Through a series of diverse or dialogic inquiries, the discourse and interaction among the speakers of Trumpet continually dismantle and rebuild Joss's identity not only as a passing or transgender subject, but also as friend, husband, and father.