The Death of Femininity: Subverting Traditional Gender Stereotypes in a Postfeminist Age through Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation PDF Free Download
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This is the published version of the bachelor thesis:
Font Caparrós, Alba; Martín Alegre, Sara , dir. The Death of Femininity
: Subverting Traditional Gender Stereotypes in a Postfeminist Age through
Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Bellaterra: Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona, 2024. 31 pag. (Grau en Estudis d’Anglès i Espanyol)
This version is available at https://ddd.uab.cat/record/299092
under the terms of the license
DEPARTAMENT DE FILOLOGIA ANGLESA I DE GERMANÍSTICA
The Death of Femininity: Subverting Traditional
Gender Stereotypes in a Postfeminist Age through
Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Treball de Fi de Grau/ BA dissertation
Author: Alba Font Caparrós
Supervisor: Sara Martín Alegre
Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística
Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres
Grau d’Estudis d’Anglès i Espanyol
June 2024
Statement of Intellectual Honesty
Your name: Alba Font Caparrós
Title of Assignment: Treball de Fi de Grau
I declare that this is a totally original piece of work, written by me; all secondary sources
have been correctly cited. I also understand that plagiarism is an unacceptable practise
which will lead to the automatic failing of this assignment.
Signature and date: June 12th, 2024
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1
0.1. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and current research .................................................. 1
0.2. Objectives and definition of femininity....................................................................... 2
1. The unnamed narrator: navigating the self ................................................................... 4
1.1. Tall and thin and blond and pretty: the paradox of physical appearance ........................ 4
1.2. Self-perception, personal projection, and processing trauma ........................................ 8
2. Her relationships: interacting and (dis)connecting ..................................................... 12
2.1. Female friendship: envy, pity, and admiration ........................................................... 12
2.2. Romance and sex: fragile masculinity, true love, and rough sex ................................. 18
3. Conclusions and Further Research ............................................................................. 23
Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 25
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to thank my friends for their unconditional support and for
making these past four years the best of my life. Thanks to all six of you for all the classes
we’ve spent laughing and for all the anecdotes I can’t share here. I admire the women you
are becoming. I would also like to thank my family, especially my mother, for
understanding me like no one else and for always being there when I needed her. A special
thanks to my brother Adam, for putting up with me every day and still loving me just the
same. Finally, I would like to thank my tutor, Prof. Sara Martín for her guidance in writing
this dissertation and for encouraging me to improve and continue learning.
Abstract
Ottessa Moshfegh (b. Boston, 1981) presents in her novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation
(2018) the story of an unnamed young woman whose goal is to achieve a drug-induced one-year
state of hibernation in order to escape her reality, and thus find inner peace. In this dissertation I
will be arguing that the construction of the main character’s personality in Ottessa Moshfegh’s
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is the result of a postfeminist sensibility because, while it does
not present a feminist character, it defies traditional femininity by portraying a woman who
actively detaches herself from traits commonly associated with conventional feminine roles, such
as nurturing, expressiveness, empathy, positivity, or obedience.
I will begin to justify this thesis by focusing solely on the unnamed narrator. This includes
the way she presents herself (with a disregard for her physical appearance), and the way she views
her own identity, as well as how she processes trauma through emotional detachment, and her
radically individualistic vital decisions.
However, I also suggest that the non-conformity regarding conventional femininity can
also be observed by the way in which she interacts with other people. Her interpersonal
relationships, from friendships (with her only friend Reva) to romantic partners (Trevor), are
determined by a disregard to how femininity has been traditionally conceived (in terms of its
mythological and theological representation).
Keywords: gender, femininity, stereotypes, postfeminism, Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest
and Relaxation
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0. Introduction
0.1. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and current research
Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation follows the journey of an unnamed
young woman who decides to immerse herself in a one-year drug-induced hibernation.
Her goal is to disconnect from her reality, a shallow and image-obsessed early 2000s New
York City, to be reborn. Through an autodiegetic narration, Moshfegh allows the reader
to delve into the mind of an emotionally detached and rather cynical character, whose
individualistic nature determines all her relationships. In this dark comedy, intense
emotions are constantly dismissed, often being a source of shock and laughter for both
the protagonist and the reader.
Ottessa Moshfegh (Boston, 1981) is an American writer of Croatian and Iranian
descent. Her novel Eileen, published in 2015, popularised her writing and was adapted
into a film starring Anne Hathaway. In this novel, Moshfegh anticipates her interest in
portraying flawed female characters, by creating a protagonist that is “utterly real,
visceral, honest and even unattractive” (Moshfegh online). Winner of several awards,
such as the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel in 2016, Moshfegh has been
acclaimed by her distinctive dark humorous literary voice. Published in 2018, My Year of
Rest and Relaxation is Moshfegh’s second novel. My Year of Rest and Relaxation
explores controversial topics such as drug abuse or sex, for which this novel has attracted
a lot of attention, as well as for the unlikeability of its main character. Especially her
portrayal of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, with Reva as one of the victims, has been the
main focus of its reviews
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. While some scholars believe that Moshfegh “refuses this
1
This novel was originally intended to focus on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Even though the project took a different approach by portraying the protagonist’s journey of
introspection, 9/11 is still crucial to the outcome of the novel.
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sentimental interpretation of 9/11” (Behluli 627) and “uses the September 11 attacks
purely to allow her unnamed protagonist to see a woman ‘diving into the unknown’ by
jumping from one of the Twin Towers and know that ‘she is wide awake’” (Corbett 289),
others claim that Reva’s “death on 9/11 seems to cinch the narrator’s redemption”
(Bergman 92).
Despite its recent publication, several scholars have shown an interest in studying
My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Some scholars have focused on how the protagonist’s
lack of action poses a challenge to society: while Behluli (2018) concentrates on apathy
as a subversive strength, Greenberg (2021) examines the narrator’s rejection of
productivity. Ivana (2020) dedicates part of her research regarding unlikeable female
characters to Moshfegh’s unnamed narrator, observing how this character distances
herself from the norm through her relationships. Moreover, Ottessa Moshfegh (2023)
shares in an article for The Guardian her view on writing characters perceived as
unpleasant through her novel Eileen: “Everyone asked me why I had written such a
disgusting female character” (Moshfegh online). However, not many of the studies
conducted have focused on how the personality of the protagonist has been constructed,
especially the reasoning behind this construction.
0.2. Objectives and definition of femininity
The aim of this dissertation is to prove that the unnamed protagonist of My Year of Rest
and Relaxation does not conform to traditional stereotypes associated with femininity,
since she is a product of a postfeminist sensibility. In her study of postfeminism or popular
feminism, Hollows (2000) reveals that “the entry of feminism into the popular has
produced new forms of femininity that are not ‘feminist’ but do not conform to
‘traditional’ forms of feminine subjectivity either” (196). This subversion of traditional
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gender roles and stereotypes can be observed in the protagonist’s relationship with
herself, as well as in the way she interacts with the world around her.
Additionally, this novel is an example of how postfeminist literature reexamines
femininity. The concept of femininity understood as a social construct, or a masquerade
has changed throughout the course of history. As Tseëlon mentions, certain historical
periods entailed a reinforcement of traditional values associated with femininity (36). It
is the case of the Industrial Revolution, in which “from the point of view of the woman,
the victory of the bourgeoisie marked a regression. For bourgeois values emphasised her
domestic role and redefined her in the territory of the home” (Tseëlon 36), or the Victorian
era, in which femininity was associated with modesty and decorum (Tseëlon 92).
Furthermore, Hollows (10) analyses the social misconception of associating biological
abilities with culturally constructed personality traits attributed to femininity. Hollows
states: “while biological differences between men and women did mean that women were
biologically destined to give birth to children, it did not necessarily follow that women
naturally had feminine, ‘maternal’ instincts which made them essentially more
supportive, nurturing and caring than men” (10).
Nevertheless, these supposedly inherent attributes of women, despite being social
constructs, are still present in the 21st Century. Female characters are expected to act
“feminine” at the cost of being considered shocking or unlikeable if they fail to do so.
Consequently, postfeminist writers such as Ottessa Moshfegh who find themselves “in a
time that is moving beyond reified and traditional gender relations” (Corbett 43) are
deconstructing these social expectations of what being a feminine character means. It is
the case of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, in which Ottessa Moshfegh creates a
character who openly rejects imposed feminine stereotypes, as well as traditional
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institutions such as marriage or motherhood: “Reva often spoke about ‘settling down’.
That sounded like death to me” (Moshfegh 28).
Certain sources have been crucial to gain a deeper understanding of what femininity
is, especially within a postfeminist context. In relation to the concept of femininity,
Tseëlon (1995) offers a historical view on its development, and Hardin (1998) analyses
its relation to gender performativity. Hollows (2000) also studies the evolution of
femininity, as well as introducing popular feminism. Blackstone (2003) and Raphael-Leff
(2010) deconstruct Western interpretations of femininity. Both Stone (2007) and Ngai
(2005) offer a feminist approach to femininity. Furthermore, Judith Butler’s (1900) notion
of gender performativity, by which she claims that we express our own gender depending
on our personal agency and what our community tolerates or welcomes, has been
absolutely essential in this dissertation: “There is no gender identity behind the
expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very
‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Butler 33). Regarding postfeminism, while
Evans (2023) focuses on the conception of femininity in the current consumer culture,
Corbett (2023) studies the relationship between postfeminism and film and literature,
briefly using My Year of Rest and Relaxation as an example of a novel determined by the
female gaze. All these sources share the idea that femininity is constructed socially, and
that it is constantly being revisited over time.
1. The unnamed narrator: navigating the self
1.1. Tall and thin and blond and pretty: the paradox of physical appearance
If there is one thing that is certain about the protagonist of My Year of Rest and Relaxation
is that she is beautiful. The unnamed narrator is not only being frequently reminded about
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her beauty by the people around her, but she herself is unafraid to share this reality with
the reader. Through this character, Ottessa Moshfegh reexamines topics such as feminine
self-image, confidence, and privilege.
Moshfegh’s protagonist finds herself in a constant dichotomy: the constant
acknowledgement of her beauty is followed by a complete disregard for how she is
physically perceived. Even though she fits perfectly within the beauty standard, “I was
tall and thin and blond and pretty and young. Even at my worst, I knew I still looked
good” (27), she feels indifferent about this. Rather than follow the social expectations by
which “femininity, rather than simply being natural, has to be ‘put together’” (Hollows
155), the protagonist presents herself “with eye boogers and scum at the corners of my
mouth” (5). Thus, Ottessa Moshfegh creates a character who consciously chooses to
overlook gendered social norms: “I took a shower once a week at most. I stopped
tweezing, stopped bleaching, stopped waxing, stopped brushing my hair. No moisturizing
or exfoliating. No shaving” (2). Moshfegh’s narrator does not feel the feminine pressure
to achieve perfection or, in her case, to maintain it, since her personal goal goes beyond
her corporality. She only wishes to sleep for a year to be reborn. This aligns with the
postfeminist sensibility of female characters refusing to be simply observed in order to
become observers. In other words, postfeminist writers subvert the male gaze by which
women are expected to be “beautiful, adorned, made-up and disguised with finery”
(Tseëlon 100) to present a more complex portrayal of womanhood. According to Corbett,
“the millennial speak text (…) saps the ‘chick’ mode of its broadly positive or rosy vision
of young womanhood by choosing a darker-tinged, drier and more raw and realistic
aesthetic” (83).
Since her childhood, the narrator has been adulated and envied for her physical
appearance, regardless of how little importance she has ever attached to it:
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I was emulated and gossiped about. I was blond and thin and pretty–that’s what
people noticed. That’s what those girls cared about. I learned to float on cheap
affections gleaned from other people’s insecurities. I didn’t stay out late. I just did
my homework, kept my room clean, bided my time until I could move out and grow
up and feel normal, I hoped. (65)
The narrator, then, is solely focused on her hibernation, unable to relate to society's
fixation on beauty standards. In her analysis of mass consumption as well as fashion and
beauty practices, Hollows considers that it is common to “associate femininity with
shallowness, triviality and irrationality” (138). Hence, it is considered traditionally
feminine to forsake reasoning in the search for ‘perfection’. As a person who conforms
to the beauty standard, the unnamed protagonist detaches from this quest, finding it
pointless in a world that is essentially devoid of meaning, and that one should disconnect
from.
The protagonist’s lack of insecurity might come off as the result of narcissistic
behaviour, since “a woman is made to feel continually insecure about her physical
appearance, and simultaneously so dependent on it” (Tseëlon 80). However, this is the
product of self-awareness. By saying “I was still pretty, still blond and tall and thin. I still
had good posture. One might have even confused me for a celebrity in slovenly incognito”
(93) or “I was hot shit” (144), the protagonist is simply describing her reality, which is
constantly validated by the people around her. Moshfegh’s use of a “brutal language”
(Behluli 619) puts the focus on the reader, who is shocked to find a female character
confident in her physical appearance. The unlikeability of this character, then, could be
associated with the postfeminist aim of creating characters who are “no longer
constrained by the ‘male gaze’” (Ivana 40). Despite being conventionally beautiful, the
narrator disregards her physical appearance as a relevant factor in her goal to sleep for a
year. In her alienation, thus, her ambition is only subject to her own individualistic gaze.
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Furthermore, far from being naively disconnected from her reality, the protagonist
is aware of the social rules she is distancing herself from: “If I had been a man, I may
have turned to a life of crime. But I looked like an off-duty model. (...) Being pretty only
kept me trapped in a world that valued looks above all else” (35). It is in this sense of
entrapment that we can understand My Year of Rest and Relaxation as a result of a
postfeminist sensibility. Corbett describes postfeminism as “entanglement of
conventionally feminist and anti-feminist dictates” (42). The protagonist, although
affected by the “superficiality and meaninglessness” (Ivana 20) of the world she lives in,
does not feel the need to rebel against the system by compelling other women to do so.
Her journey is solitary. She exclusively focuses on her decision to sleep for a year, without
considering the possibility of empathising with other women who might also feel
“trapped” in an essentially shallow world.
The novel is set in New York City in 2000 and 2001, an environment in which
consumerism prevails over morality. In this climate, the protagonist is both economically
and physically privileged, which is crucial to achieving her one-year drug-induced sleep:
“the sound of my own washer and dryer interfered with my sleep. So I just threw away
my dirty underpants” (2). The narrator, mindful of her situation, does not feel the need to
hide this information from the reader:
I had all my bills on automatic payment plans. I’d already paid a year of property
taxes on my apartment and on my dead parents’ old house upstate. Rent money from
the tenants in that house showed up in my checking account by direct deposit every
month. (...) Plus, I had investments. My dead father’s financial advisor kept track of
all that and sent me quarterly statements that I never read. I had plenty of money in
my savings account, too–enough to live on for a few years as long as I didn’t do
anything spectacular. (...) I wasn’t worried about money.
As Ivana claims: “Moshfegh challenges her narrator’s elitism by portraying her as
ironically hyperaware of her privilege” (20). By openly expressing that “everyone at
school hated me because I was so pretty” (148), the unnamed narrator is not conforming
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to the Victorian stereotype or “feminine strategy” (Tseëlon 92) of modesty. Following
Judith Butler’s premises, “gender identity is not an attribute of an individual, but an act
which must be repeatedly performed” (Harding 2). In this case, the protagonist refuses to
perform an imposed femininity. She is not humble and will not masquerade as such: “I
was born into privilege. (…) I am not going to squander that. I’m not a moron” (265).
The personal journey of the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation is defined
by what this character dissociates from. In this case, by the disregard of how she presents
herself, followed by the dismissal of feminine expectations for women. After all, the
unnamed protagonist identifies with how she is externally perceived, which she reiterates
throughout the novel, but decides to overlook these impositions in her determination to
rest for a year. It is in this combination of vanity and carelessness that the unlikeability of
this character resides. However, Moshfegh allows her protagonist to be contradictory,
aligning with the subversion of postfeminist writers who “look inwards and unashamedly
exhibit their myopic white, middle class, heterosexual femaleness. They tell stories of
personal rather than social realism, and thus typically embrace rather than eschew their
privilege” (Corbett 92).
1.2. Self-perception, personal projection, and processing trauma
While feminist characters are created to inspire other women and thrive when fighting for
a communal goal, just as First Wave feminists aimed for women’s suffrage or Second
Wave feminists fought for equal pay, it is a postfeminist endeavour to present characters
shaped by capitalist values, e.g. with a strong sense of individuality: “Popular feminism
emphasised individual problems and solutions rather than the notion of collective struggle
that had been so fundamental to the feminist project” (Hollows 194).
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However, postfeminism cannot be understood as a synonym of anti-feminism.
Female characters built within the postfeminist scope share the same conflicts that
feminism condemned. Characters such as the unnamed narrator in My Year of Rest and
Relaxation, who are “not feminist, but informed by feminism” (Hollows 196), also
struggle with their sense of identity and with having to reconcile their personal traumas
with social expectations. It is in this way that we must understand the postfeminist
tendency of creating female characters who are “neither feminist, nor traditionally
feminine” (Hollows 196).
The protagonist of My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a deeply troubled woman who
keeps surprising the reader by presenting herself as antisocial, cynical, and extremely
unemotional. Tseëlon depicts femininity as a performance or a constructed identity, by
which stereotypical feminine behaviour is described as “friendly, likeable, and socially
desirable” (Tseëlon 79). Moshfegh’s protagonist is radically different: “I hated talking to
people” (1). The narrator has no interest in being delicate or polite, and often lacks any
sense of decorum. For example, this is how she quits her job at an art gallery: “Then I
pulled down my pants, squatted, and shat on the floor” (50). Sentences like “I’d rather eat
shit than have to work for that cunt one more day” (55) or “My pubic hair puffed out of
the panties. It was a good joke–sexy underwear with a huge bush” (159) are what makes
readers believe that “Moshfegh’s fiction is often shocking, provocative and vulgar”
(Behluli 610).
Moreover, the protagonist is a woman who must deal with the death of both of her
parents. Rather than following the traditional feminine stereotype by which we “associate
femininity with surrender, altruism, empathy and emotional expressivity” (Raphael-Leff
91), she processes trauma through emotional detachment. “I felt nothing. I could think of
feelings, emotions, but I couldn’t bring them up in me. I couldn’t even locate where my
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emotions came from” (137, original emphasis); “Outside of the occasional irritation, I
had no nightmares, no passions, no desires, no great pains” (84). Even when the narrator
seems to be expressing a sparkle of emotion when she is reflecting on her deceased
parents, her flow of thoughts always results in a drastic focus on the self:
I wanted to hold on to the house the way you’d hold on to a love letter. It was proof
that I had not always been alone in this world. But I think I was also holding on to
the loss, to the emptiness of the house itself, as though to affirm that it was better to
be alone than to be stuck with people who were supposed to love you, yet couldn’t.
(64)
In fact, her goal of drugging herself to the point of sleeping through a whole year is
the product of her emotional unavailability and her identity crisis. Instead of being in
touch with her feelings, which would suit the traditional stereotype of femininity, she
follows an avoidant attachment style, by which she can distance herself from all
emotional connections to ultimately be reborn: “I would risk death if it meant I could
sleep all day and become a whole new person” (26). Therefore, this is not a deep feeling
of grief, but rather this sense of ennui that leads the narrator to her decision to sleep for a
year:
I can’t point to any one event that resulted in my decision to go into hibernation.
Initially, I just wanted some downers to drown out of my thoughts and judgments,
since the constant barrage made it hard not to hate everyone and everything. I thought
life would be more tolerable if my brain were slower to condemn the world around
me. (17)
By creating an essentially flawed and traumatised character, Moshfegh is aligning with
the postfeminist tendency of enhancing the artistic female gaze. According to Corbett,
“the millennial female creator exposes both the freedoms and the failings of 21st century
postfeminism and embraces the truly (and often irredeemably) messy subject that arrives
in its wake” (83).
In an article for The Guardian regarding her novel Eileen, Moshfegh admits: “I felt
that I was feeding the beast of a capitalist book industry while using my artistic
sensibilities to sneak in some subversive ideas” (Moshfegh online). In the case of My
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Year of Rest and Relaxation, the narrator’s unemotionality is a subversive idea. As Behluli
claims: “apathy signals a withdrawal from social structures and can therefore pose a
serious challenge to the way society is organized” (Behluli 609). Since the voice of the
protagonist dominates the narration, the reader is forced to see everything through her
perspective and is therefore compelled to be a part of her rebellion: “Moshfegh’s
protagonist refuses to contain her dark feelings in order to gratify patriarchal expectations
of women as feminine, docile, and contented beings” (Ivana 36).
According to Hollows, “for many second-wave feminists, femininity was seen as
fundamental to understanding women’s oppression. Girls, it was often claimed, were
socialised into feminine values and behaviour which were associated with passivity,
submissiveness, and dependence” (10). The narrator’s passivity, however, is non-
conforming, and comes as a sort of passive resistance, so that even “sleep felt productive”
(51). By choosing to sleep for a year and to be physically passive, the narrator is not
contributing to society. She is detaching herself from the system: “in this system, feeling
thus implies a feeling for, whereas apathy brings out the unproductive downside of
neoliberal individualism” (Behluli 610). Furthermore, the protagonist’s intention is
entirely individualistic. She only acts considering how it will affect her: how she will find
a way to drug herself, dispose of all her possessions, and ultimately be reborn. The
narrator is only submissive to her own ambition: “I trusted that everything was going to
work out fine as long as I could sleep all day” (27), which aligns with the concept of
“postfeminist femininity as a subversive strength” (Corbett 243).
The protagonist goes into her hibernation on one condition: “If, when I woke up in
June, life still wasn’t worth the trouble, I would end it. I would jump. This was the deal I
made”. (260). From her perspective, then, her rest cannot only be physical, it must be
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taken to the extreme. It is only when she has completely lost herself in the process that
she will be reborn. On May 28th, this moment arrives:
I fell past whole galaxies, mercurial waves of light strobing through my body,
blinding me over and over, my brain throbbing from the pressure, my eyes leaking
as though each teardrop shed a vision of my past. (…) I was nowhere, doing nothing.
I was nothing. I was gone. (275)
On June 1st, 2001, the narrator wakes up from her “year-long depression” (Behluli
619): “I was alive” (276). Having experienced a shift in her mental state, in which her
suicidal thoughts have dissipated, the protagonist reflects on life from a more hopeful yet
still cynical perspective. Her reawakening is understood by the narrator in artistic terms.
This new sensibility materializes in her visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in which
she reflects that “Neither creation nor sacrifice could lead a person to heaven” (286).
Similarly, she touches a painting “simply to prove to myself that there was no God
stalking my soul. Time was not immemorial. Things were just things. (…) I was free”
(286, original emphasis). Therefore, it is the idea of free will that seems to shake the
protagonist out of her stupor. Her ‘redemption’ is an introspective and autonomous
process. Her transformation, thus, far from turning her into a role model, remains limited
to her own personal sphere, which ultimately aligns with “the postfeminist project of the
self” (Corbett 54).
2. Her relationships: interacting and (dis)connecting
2.1. Female friendship: envy, pity, and admiration
Even though My Year of Rest and Relaxation narrates a journey of introspection, the
protagonist, most of the time unwillingly, interacts with the outside world. Her main
social relationship is with Reva, the protagonist’s “annoyingly devoted best friend”
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(Greenberg 192). Through the character of Reva, Moshfegh delves into the complex
notion of female friendships. As Corbett observes, postfeminist writers “stage their
flawed but relatable (although not always likeable) protagonists, among a circle of flawed
but relatable (and, again, certainly not always likeable) people, against the backdrop of
relatable locations, scenes and experiences” (79). Reva is the perfect example of a flawed
but relatable character that accompanies the protagonist throughout her journey. She is
image-obsessed, jealous, bulimic, and extremely insecure. Reva is the representation of a
woman who desperately tries to fit into the standard and embody the idealised image of
femininity. She is, therefore, the consequence of the pressure put on women to conform
to societal expectations. The narrator is well aware of this: “she was a slave to vanity and
status, which was not unusual in a place like Manhattan, but I found her desperation
especially irritating. It made it hard for me to respect her intelligence. She was so obsessed
with brand names, conformity, “fitting in”” (9). Thus, the protagonist “manages not only
to distance herself from cultural norms and ideals that her friend, Reva, lives by, but also
ridicules the obscene standards that are imposed on women” (Ivana 49).
The protagonist’s emotional detachment transcends her own being to affect her
other relationships, especially Reva: “Her mother was dying of cancer. That, among many
other things, made me not want to see her” (6). While Reva shares her feelings freely, the
narrator seems unable to follow the same direction:
Eventually, she’d cry about her mother. “I just can’t talk to her like I used to. I feel
so sad. I feel so abandoned. I feel very, very alone.”
“We’re all alone, Reva,” I told her. It was true: I was, she was. This was the
maximum comfort I could offer. (12)
It is quite ironic how the protagonist, as someone who has experienced the death of her
parents, seems incapable of empathising with her friend’s pain when she goes through the
same experience, and reacts as if Reva’s emotions were a burden to her. The narrator
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defies “the traditional view of the feminine gender role (that) prescribes that women
should behave in ways that are nurturing” (Blackstone 337), by (not) comforting Reva
with responses such as ““You’ll be fine,” I told Reva when she said her mother was
starting a third round of chemo. “Don’t be a spaz,” I said when her mother’s cancer spread
to her brain” (17) or
Reva looked at me for a reaction, but I gave her none. She was going to be annoying,
I could tell. She’d expect me to say comforting things, to put an arm around her
shoulders while she sobbed at the funeral. I was trapped. The day would be hell. I
would suffer. (123)
Some readers have perceived the character as extremely unlikeable for reactions like the
ones I just presented. Nevertheless, as Moshfegh herself admits, “women, too, can be
immoral and selfish” (Moshfegh online), and it deserves to be portrayed in literature just
as much as troubled male characters have been depicted in books for centuries. Corbett
claims: “it is a narcissistic, self-important individualism that only seems to be available
to women within a postfeminist paradigm and in the millennial epoch, when women are
able to engage in “neoliberal reflexive ‘project of the self’” to the same extent as men”
(93).
Reva strives for an idealised vision of female friendship that the protagonist cannot
fulfil:
Poor Reva. She might actually have thought I was capable of sharing things. “Friends
forever?” She’d want us to make some sacred pact. She always wanted to make
pacts. “Let’s make a pact to have brunch at least twice a month. Let’s promise to go
for a walk through Central Park every Saturday. Let’s have a daily call-time. Will
you swear to take a ski trip this year? It burns so many calories.” (238)
This frustration turns Reva into experiencing the negative emotions linked to a failed
femininity. According to Sianne Ngai, the association between emotion and women
“creates nervousness, with “women’s feelings” imagined as always easily prone to
turning ugly. Envy is one of the most conventionally imagined of these feelings” (33):
Jealousy was one thing Reva didn’t seem to feel the need to hide from me. Ever since
we’d formed a friendship, if I told her that something good happened, she’d wine
15
“No fair” often enough that it became a kind of catchphrase that she would toss off
casually, her voice flat. It was an automatic response to my good grade, a new shade
of lipstick, the last popsicle, my expensive haircut. “No fair.” (10)
The protagonist, although aware of Reva’s envy, never engages in this dynamic:
“I’d make my fingers like a cross and hold them out between us, as though to protect me
from her envy and wrath” (10). She seems unaffected by the world around her, as if
Reva’s concerns and interests were completely alien to her: “(Reva) knew all the latest
celebrity gossip, followed the newest fashion trends. I didn’t give a shit about that stuff”
(13). As Ivana asserts: “Moshfegh’s protagonist portrays empowerment (...) by assuming
an entirely asocial behaviour and dismissing conventional ideals of feminine beauty and
grooming” (40). This impassive stance becomes obvious when the narrator encounters
newspapers:
Stacks of old, unsold newspapers were piled up against a broken window next to the
fridge of milk and sodas. I read the headlines slowly, my eyes blurring and crossing
as I stared. The new president was going to be hard on terrorists. A Harlem teenager
had thrown her newborn baby down a sewage drain. A mine caved somewhere is
South America. A local councilman was caught having gay sex with an illegal
immigrant. Someone who used to be fat was now extremely thin. (...) I had a vague
notion that Reva was coming over that night. (104)
The news is expressed in a quite cynical and unemotional tone, followed by a sudden
change of topic. Since the news does not affect her, they are perceived as unimportant:
“Things were happening in New York City—they always are—but none of it affected
me. This was the beauty of sleep—reality detached itself and appeared in my mind as
casually as a movie or a dream. It was easy to ignore things that didn’t concern me” (4).
Thus, the postfeminist sensibility can be observed in the construction of a female
character that refuses to carry the emotional burden of the world around her.
Acting as a foil character to the protagonist, Reva is often depicted as “corny and
affectionate and needy” (8), which only makes the narrator more eager to withdraw from
her:
“Oh shut up, Reva.”
16
“I love you.”
Maybe she did, and that’s why I hated her. (244, original emphasis)
The narrator does not hide her aversion to Reva from the reader: “I yawned, hating her”
(58); “she could really look pathetic when she was outraged” (59). According to
Greenberg, the narrator’s rejection of Reva is a consequence of her neglected childhood,
by which the protagonist has “internalized the mother’s unloving cruelty, which she then
reproduces, often directing it at Reva and all of the conventional gendered expectations
for plot that Reva represents” (195). While the protagonist’s only desire is to sleep, and
she is, therefore, dependent on no one, Reva does want to live a life according to social
expectations. However, she is unable to meet these expectations, which leads her to a
deep frustration: “I had chosen my solitude and purposelessness, and Reva had, despite
her hard work, simply failed to get what she wanted–no husband, no children, no fabulous
career” (14). Despite portraying the difficulties that conforming to a conventional path
entails through the character of Reva, Moshfegh writes the novel from the perspective of
the unnamed protagonist. Consequently, individualism prevails over the possibility of a
more general relatability among the public. Moshfegh’s intention aligns with the idea that
“individualism is also key to understanding (...) digital culture and a new, popular
feminism” (Evans 2).
Besides, Greenberg notes that “the rejection of the outside world, especially of
Reva, finds expression in a cruel satiric humor that the reader can enjoy” (198):
I took a Polaroid of her one night and stuck it into the frame of the mirror in the
living room. Reva thought it was a loving gesture, but the photo was really meant as
a reminder of how little I enjoyed her company if I felt like calling her later while I
was under the influence. (14)
Moshfegh’s writing is witty and twisted, often using controversial topics such as abortion,
suicide, or necrophilia to create humour:
“Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. Who said that?”
“Someone who liked fucking corpses” (75)
17
The protagonist’s friendship with Reva is the perfect example of why My Year or
Rest and Relaxation is considered a “dark comedy” (Behluli 617), since “through the lens
of this cynical character, her friend’s optimism appears naïve” (Behluli 618): “I was both
relieved and irritated when Reva showed up, the way you’d feel if someone interrupted
you in the middle of suicide” (7). Moshfegh’s autodiegetic narrator often finds Reva’s
sentimentality comical, offering the reader scenes that are hilarious only because they are
visible through the protagonist’s perspective:
After a minute or two of silence, she looked up at me and put a finger under her
nose–something she did when she was about to start crying. It was like an Adolf
Hitler impression. I pulled my sweater over my head and grit my teeth and tried not
to laugh. (16)
Nevertheless, the epitome of tragic irony is Reva’s death in 9/11, which is
anticipated throughout the novel with remarks such as:
“That I’m getting a promotion, and they’re transferring me to the Towers.” (…).
“You’re getting a promotion?”
“Marsh is starting a new crisis consulting firm. Terrorist risks, blah blah.” (203)
The last chapter of My Year of Rest and Relaxation is devoted to the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, of which Reva is a victim. At this point of the novel, the
protagonist has already been reborn from her hibernation. However, her reaction
towards 9/11 seems disturbing. For example, she describes the calming effect that the
news coverage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers has on her: “Reva was
gone. I watched the videotape over and over to soothe myself that day. And I continue
to watch it, usually on a lonely afternoon, or any other time I doubt that life is worth
living, or when I need courage, or when I am bored”. This reaction makes the reader
question the reliability of the narrator, and whether she has truly changed or not, since
“even 9/11 ultimately has a numbing, anesthetizing effect” (Dirschauer 60).
The ambiguity of this chapter reaches its climax with the description of a
woman, presumably Reva, falling from one of the Towers:
18
Each time I see the woman leap off the Seventy-eight floor of the North
Tower—one high-heeled shoe slipping off and hovering up over her, the other
stuck on her foot as though it were too small, her blouse untucked, hair
flailing, limbs stiff as she plummets down, one arm raised, like a dive into a
summer lake—I am overcome by awe, not because she looks like Reva, and
I think it’s her, almost exactly her, and not because Reva and I had been
friends, or because I’ll never see her again, but because she is beautiful. There
she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake. (289)
It is not grief or sadness that the videotape awakens in the narrator, but rather an
impersonal meditation on beauty and freedom. With each viewing of these images,
Reva’s death loses sentimentality. The narrator unashamedly uses the woman to
reflect on her own personal journey, consciously disregarding their friendship. The
narration of this chapter, thus, excludes any sign of empathy towards Reva’s tragic
ending. This woman transcends Reva’s identity to become an abstract figure, the
embodiment of sublimity. For this reason, the ‘falling woman’ might be Reva, but
the protagonist would be equally moved if it were any other woman or person.
Additionally, the protagonist admires and describes the scene as if it were a work of
art. According to Behluli, “with this ekphrastic description of one of the most horrific
images that has ever been broadcast around the globe, Moshfegh’s novel comes to a
shocking, affectively overpowering end” (625).
2.2. Romance and sex: fragile masculinity, true love, and rough sex
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is not a love story. The only contact the protagonist has
with romantic intimacy comes from an on-and-off relationship with Trevor, a rich, selfish,
and emotionally unavailable older man. Through the character of Trevor, Moshfegh
explores topics such as fragile masculinity, romance, and sex.
In her analysis of the series Girls, Corbett observes how it “reflects the fictional and
lived generic conventions of postfeminism, both synthesising and subverting pre-existing
19
modes, for instance sapping the romantic-comedy of its easy optimism” (82). In My Year
of Rest and Relaxation, romance is lacking optimism altogether. Moshfegh depicts Trevor
as a satire of romantic love: “I imagined Trevor on one knee, proposing to his current
lady friend. The self-satisfaction. The stupidity of wanting something ‘forever’. I almost
felt sorry for him, for her” (268). For Tseëlon, femininity is a performance of certain
stereotypes and patterns of behaviour that changes throughout time. He describes how, in
the Victorian era, it was reinforced that for a woman to be considered feminine, she had
“to attract, to please and to get married” (Tseëlon 92). Moshfegh’s unnamed protagonist,
however, would never fit into these feminine Victorian standards, since she is not
interested in attracting, pleasing, or getting married. Although aware of the continued
existence of these expectations, the protagonist confidently rejects them: “I think he
thought that seeing the place would make me want to marry him. In truth, I thought that
his apartment made him seem pathetic–status seeking, conformist, shallow” (100).
In addition, the idea of manhood is never idealised in this novel. It is rather
ridiculed: “I interpreted Trevor’s sadism as a satire of actual sadism. His little games were
so silly” (94). As Greenberg states: “the traditional marriage plot, with its ‘predicate’ of
happily ever after, is jettisoned. The ex-boyfriend Trevor is unthinkable as a husband, a
parody of emotional and sexual selfishness” (192). The protagonist narrates: “He fucked
me efficiently, selfishly, and when he was done, he’d get dressed and check his pager,
comb his hair, kiss my forehead, and leave.” (31). Moshfegh, thus, writes Trevor as a
caricature of a powerful man, a perfect example of fragile masculinity. For this reason,
the narrator enjoys vexing Trevor with unsettling comments such as this homophobic
remark:
I asked Trevor once, “If you could have only blow jobs or only intercourse for the
rest of your life, which one would you choose?”
“Blow jobs,” he answered.
“That’s kind of gay, isn’t it?” I said. “To be more interested in mouths than pussies?”
20
He didn’t speak to me for weeks. (31)
Moreover, Trevor’s insecurity becomes obvious in his constant need to assert his
dominance: “He couldn’t resist me when I was weak. (...) In Trevor, lust and pity went
hand in hand” (210). Nevertheless, the protagonist’s reaction towards Trevor is not
exemplary either. She is mindful of Trevor’s fragile masculinity, but she is also “obsessed
with him” (29). In this complex duality we can observe the “new forms of femininity that
are not ‘feminist’ but do not conform to ‘traditional’ forms of feminine subjectivity either
(Hollows 196). The unnamed protagonist does not confront Trevor, thus becoming a
feminist role model to other women, but she does not blindly accept his dominance either.
She makes mistakes and contradicts herself, which makes her the outcome of a
postfeminist sensibility.
In an article for The Guardian, Ottessa Moshfegh admits her interest in “angling
away from any expectation about the outdated concept of a “happy ending”, that is a
heteronormative romantic relationship” (Moshfegh online). Despite rejecting more
traditional expressions of love, the protagonist of My Year of Rest and Relaxation does
demand Trevor’s attention throughout the novel. To do so, she lies: ““I’ve been sexually
assaulted,” I lied. (...) “Look, I don’t know how to say this. I’m HIV positive. I probably
got it from one of the black guys at the gym” (195). The narrator also intends to attract
Trevor’s attention by blackmailing him:
If you are not over here fucking me in the next forty-five minutes then you can call
an ambulance because I’ll be bleeding to death and I’m not gonna slit my wrists in
the tub like a normal person. If you’re not here in forty-five minutes, I’m gonna slit
my throat right here on the sofa. (211)
Scenes like the ones I just presented, in which the protagonist’s “overt rejection of
relatability” (Behluli 618) becomes obvious, conform to the postfeminist endeavour of
creating female characters that are allowed to be morally reprehensible. Far from being a
heroine, the unnamed narrator remains someone who blunders, and who “although she is
21
wealthy, blonde, pretty and fits into a skinny size two, (....) is incredibly depressed,
cynical and withdrawn from life” (Behluli 617).
The concept of femininity associated with “caring and emotional” (Stone 64)
behaviour is also defied through the narrator’s thoughts on love. The protagonist does not
relate to being emotional or sensitive, which often leads to her association with coldness:
“All men I’d ever been with, young as well as old, had been detached and unfriendly.
“You’re a cold fish, that’s why,” Reva explained. “Like attracts like.”” (8). Instead of
feeling guilty for projecting this image of herself, the unnamed narrator finds
empowerment in her refusal of the feminine stereotype: “Trevor had told me once he
thought I was frigid, and that was fine with me. Fine. Let me be a cold bitch. Let me be
the ice queen” (204). Since love understood as vulnerability is rejected by the narrator,
she decides to use it as a form of revenge. Throughout the novel, there are instances when
the protagonist asserts dominance on men she is not familiar with, in this case as a form
of self-assurance: “I reclaimed a bit of my dignity by feeling nothing for that boy, using
him” (30), but she especially takes revenge on Trevor. In Trevor’s case, vengeance is
enhanced by the fact that the narrator is rather disgusted by the idea of romance:
“Do you still love him?”
“Gross, Reva.”
“Do you think he still loves you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you wish he did?”
The answer was yes, but only so that he would feel the pain of me rejecting him.
(208)
The narrator’s coldness, however, is not presented as something necessarily wrong.
Moshfegh is illustrating the reality of a troubled character, without intending to justify
her actions. In this sense, it is crucial that the protagonist is the autodiegetic narrator, and
that her perspective shapes the perception of all elements of this novel. Thus, Moshfegh
ensures that the reader should not attempt to “fix” this character, but rather accompany
22
her throughout her journey of introspection and rebirth. This stance aligns with the
postfeminist landscape, which “demands that the journey of the self must be monologized
upon and self-scrutinized” (Corbett 100).
One of the main elements that makes this novel shocking is its treatment of sex. In
My Year of Rest and Relaxation, sex is never romantic, enviable, or idealised. In fact, it
is adjusted to the narrator’s cynical perspective, who depicts sex as hyper-realistic, and
rather depressing. According to Corbett, “Moshfegh and other millennial speak authors
and directors choose to depict sex (even disappointing and arguably problematic sex)
through black, flat comedy or as an ipso facto reality” (108). This way, it is not unusual
in this novel when the narrator describes his encounters with Trevor with words such as:
“His favorite thing was to fuck my mouth while I lay on my back pretending to be asleep,
as if I wouldn’t notice his penis slamming into the back of my throat” (175).
In The Masque of Femininity, Tseëlon deconstructs how archetypal features of
femininity derive from Christian theology, in which “primordial fascination with the
mystery of the woman is fused with unconscious fears (...). To counter those fears, and to
offer the woman a path to salvation, female sexuality had to be controlled” (Tseëlon 12).
In My Year of Rest and Relaxation, however, sexuality is never controlled. Under the
influence of drugs, the narrator’s subconscious becomes unrestrained:
One day I woke up to discover that I had dug out my digital camera and sent a bunch
of strangers snapshots of my asshole, my nipple, the inside of my mouth. I’d written
messages saying that I’d like it if they came and “tied me up” and “held me hostage”
and “slurped my pussy like a plate of spaghetti”. (88)
According to Corbett, “a postfeminist epoch stresses women’s sexual pleasure and
agency” (94), while simultaneously defying “‘soft focus erotic prettiness’ to show sex
which can also be ‘aggressive, loveless, or alienated’” (Corbett 93). The postfeminist
sexual language radically differs from the idea of Victorian decorum and modesty, by
evoking graphic scenes through a vulgar or violent language. The same way that the
23
narrator enjoys provoking Trevor by placing him in situations out of his comfort zone,
such as the art exhibition in which the artist was “going to be projecting live births from
a video feed some guy set up in a village hospital in Bolivia,” I told Trevor in the cab. I
knew it would horrify him” (101), postfeminist writers like Ottessa Moshfegh probably
take pleasure in shocking their readers with their brutal descriptions.
The notion of My Year of Rest and Relaxation as an essentially subversive novel is
only reinforced when considering its approach to romance and sex. Moshfegh
deconstructs “‘traditional’ feminine traits such as domesticity, motherhood and passivity”
(Hollows 194), by creating a character who believes that “no man in worth paying for”
(176), and whose response when asked about love is:
“Have you ever been in love?”
“In what sense?” (217).
3. Conclusions and Further Research
The present dissertation aimed to prove that the protagonist of My Year of Rest and
Relaxation subverts traditional stereotypes associated with femininity, since her
personality is constructed following the postfeminist tendency of creating characters that
are not feminist, but that defy what is conventionally considered to be feminine behaviour.
Two main factors have confirmed this statement. Firstly, the narrator’s relationship with
herself is determined by an individualistic fixation on disconnecting (from her looks, her
traumas, and her overall identity). Secondly, the way the protagonist interacts with the
world around her is essentially unemotional, satirical, and forced. Both factors culminate
with the understanding that Moshfegh’s creation of a character that is extremely
contradictory, often unrelatable, and essentially flawed is a postfeminist vindication.
24
It has become clear that the unnamed protagonist is not a feminist character. She is
not interested in being a role model. In her case, personal ambition necessarily excludes
being collective. She is a reflection of the society she is detaching herself from. But her
journey of introspection demands a rejection of femininity. Only by withdrawing from all
gendered expectations she will be able to be reborn. A character that was empathetic,
nurturing, friendly, and obedient could never be the protagonist of this novel, since she
could not have neither the motives nor the capacity to sleep for a year, not at least in the
same conditions as the unnamed narrator does.
Moreover, Moshfegh’s dark narrative style is an essential part of its postfeminist
subversion. Through the lens of the unnamed narrator, not only the character itself, but
the world and everything it encompasses are tainted by her individualistic perspective.
Reva’s dreams and fears are flouted, all expectations of true love are ridiculed by Trevor’s
presence, and childhood trauma is resignedly neglected. The unlikeability of this
character, thus, lies in the eyes of a reader who fails to accept the complexity of a troubled
female character, subjecting her to a moral judgement that the novel intentionally lacks.
For further research, it would be interesting to analyse the narrator’s stance on the
absurdity and meaninglessness of the world. Especially her relationship with Dr. Tuttle,
the protagonist’s eccentric psychiatrist, is the source of many comic scenes in this novel,
in which the narrator simply observes the nonsense that surrounds her. Since the
narrator’s perspective is a topic that has been explored in this dissertation, it would be
intriguing to examine how she views her coexistence with general incoherence and
lunacy, thus combining philosophy and humour. The protagonist’s relationship with her
parents is also another topic that would be fascinating to investigate in more detail,
observing the influence of her childhood on her personal development, which would help
to gain more insight into the present dissertation.
25
Works Cited
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Moshfegh, Ottessa. My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Penguin Random House: Vintage,
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Relaxation (2018).” Anglia: Zeitschrift Für Englische Philologie/Journal of
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Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge,
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Dirschauer, Marlene. “Sleep as Action? World Alienation, Distance, and Loneliness in
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Moshfegh, Ottessa. “Ottessa Moshfegh: 'Everyone asked me why I had written such a
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Ngai, Sianne. Ugly Feelings. Harvard University Press, 2005.
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Raphael-Leff, Joan. “Contemporary Views on Femininity, Gender, and Generative
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