Feminitatea performată. Cazul Zoe Trahanache
Performing Feminity. The Case of Zoe Trahanache

Summary/Abstract: The following paper is an attempt to reposition the only feminine character of Caragiale’s comedy The Lost Letter, whom the critical tradition has mingled with the rest of the characters of the play, thus failing to notice not only the uniqueness of her feminine presence, but also her subtle transgressive act. Even though her social position is a fragile one, placing her in a relation of dependency to the men around her, she manages to gain influence and to consolidate her position in society. She refuses to submit to the traditional image of the victim, even though she is blackmailed and thus threatened by Caţavencu (the political rival of her husband and her lover) to reveal her extramarital relationship with Tipătescu, her husband’s best friend. Furthermore, these constraints offer us the privilege to notice the strength of her essence (also implied by her name): her vitality, her energy, her versatility, her active role, her political stroke. Performing her femininity, she denounces not only the social norms that threaten to destroy everything she has ever built, but also the constructed nature of femininity, as the private and the public becomes one and the same in the play.

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