Pronouns

[triskellian]

I'm writing about a man who is physically made into a woman, a woman who thinks she's a man, and a man who lives as a woman, and having great problems with pronouns. And names, as two of the above possess both a male and a female name. If I try hard enough, I can make up my entire word count with 'his/her' and similar constructions.

Comments

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

In many cases you can cheat, and use "they" instead of "he", "she" or "he/she" etc.

[triskellian]

Ah, but that's icky, and more usually used for people where you don't know their sex, rather than people whose sex you do know, but it's complicated ;-)

And it's grammatically dubious-at-least, which might be a problem for an English course ;-)

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

I'd slightly disagree... 'They' can be used in a passive tense. But with your specific essay I admit I wouldn't advise it.

Perhaps it's time to experience the delights of gender non-specific pronouns. What would that tell your examiners?

Oooh, another thought. It's a bit late for this but could you do any kind of cont5rast or compare with 'Orlando' by Virginia Wolf? That's another gender-swapping character. Just an idea.

[triskellian]

What would that tell your examiners?
Oh god. I'm not sure if I'd have to explain them or not. Possibly to one and not to the other. But I'm not interested in creating trouble for the people marking my essay - probably not conducive to a good mark ;-)

Orlando - although I own it and mean to read it eventually - wouldn't work 'cos of being by a modernist. Although I guess I could've done something interesting around exemplifying postmodernism by contrast with what went before. But anyway, I don't think it's possible to read a book and rewrite the essay in the free time I have between now and 4pm on Friday ;-)