On doing ‘being a misfit’: towards a constrastive grammar of ordinariness

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring the shaping of normality, in the hegemonial patterns which constitute the difference between the performances of social failure and success, by presenting the methodology and some key results of an extensive ongoing research project about the representation of misfits in Western literature. Through the analysis of the literary representation of a variety of interactions between misfits and ‘normals’, my work aims to investigate the primordial shaping of normative constructs in a number of apparently benign forms of social exchange such as conversation. Beyond its thematological framework, stemming from a traditional comparative setting, my research project aims at a comprehensive analysis of the repressive thrust of normality and of the various socially relevant meanings which can be expressed through the literary representation of its imperfect performance, from the cautionary tale to the return of the repressed.

Keywords

• literary criticism
• misfits in literature
• normality as performance
• Harvey Sacks, “On doing ‘being ordinary’”
• queer theory
• comparative literature