Becoming Undone: Monstrosity, leaslicum wordum, and the Strange Case of the Donestre

Abstract

In this article, I explore the Donestre, a monstrous race found in the Wonders of the East, through examining text-image relationships as well as the possible meanings of the race's very name. Although the textual description is matter-offact in tone, when coupled with the imagery, these two mediums work to "undo" the race through the exposure of not only their monstrously deformed bodies, but also their perverse use of human language, which has the effect of destabilizing their gender and sexual identities. I employ Judith Butler's notion of genderlanguage performativity and postulate that the Donestre "becomes undone" through normative conceptions of gender, which construct a differential between the human and the less-than-human. According to Judith Butler, gender is culturally determined via the concrete laws, rules and policies that constitute the legal instruments through which persons are made regular, and most importantly recognisable. 1 Gender is not a static biological fact but a dynamic cultural production; it is a performance, a "kind of doing, an incessant activity performed