The editors of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism comment on Helene Cixous' essay "The Laugh of the Medusa," saying that "The incompatibility between ecriture feminine as assertion of the female body and ecriture feminine as capable of being written by men creates an impossible logic that IS [caps added in substitution of underlining] ecriture feminine. Such a writing practice is bound to seem outrageous almost all the time" (2038). Yet other critics such as Susan E. Dunn, Associate Director of the Stanford Humanities Center, writes in her lecture entitled "The Place That Writes: Locating Hélène Cixous in Feminist Theory" that "critics of Cixous have been most troubled by her assertions when they understand her metaphors too literally...In order to understand the complexity of her [Cixous'] writings, one must delve into its deeply contradictory poetics."
This is a tricky topic. While the use of oxymorons is my favorite literary device, I'm not sure that Helene Cixous uses it effectively here. But let me just use this space to figure out what I really think...let me use it to get a feel for my undiscovered thoughts--bear with me.
Cixous says that ecriture feminine is the assertion of the female body. It is the assertion of the woman's body insofar as men have turned women against themselves because of phallogocentrism. "They have made for women an antinarcissism! A narcissism which loves itself only to be loved for what women haven't got!" (Cixous, 2042). It makes sense--women write to let their bodies be known and be proud of what they have--and have not. "Our glances, our smiles, are spent; laughs exude from all our mouths; our blood flows and we extend ourselves without ever reaching an end; we never hold back our thoughts, our signs, our writing; and we're not afraid of lacking" (Cixous, 2042).
If ecriture feminine is the female response to centuries of suppression by the male sex, how can males possibly employ this writing practice in their own writing? The practice is not just an awareness of female suppression; rather it is an assertion of the female body. There's just no way around it--how could a man assert the body as suppressed if he is not female? It doesn't add up. Perhaps I'm not understanding the whole thing correctly--which is quite possible because this was a difficult essay to read and I'm trying to work ahead of the lit. crit. class (due to an upcoming trip to London) and therefore have not participated in Dr. Powers' lecture/discussion on this particular essay. I hate to end it this way again, but perhaps there will be more to come?
Monday, March 24, 2008
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1 comments:
Jory, I think the issue you raise here is an interesting one, and I don't think we talked about it in class. It really does seem like saying that there is a way to write out of not only the feminine experience but also the very essence of being feminine (that is, not out of women's historical experience but out of something inherent in their bodies and psychologies) means that men cannot participate in that sort of writing. They could imagine what it would be like to be a woman, I suppose ... but that's not quite the same thing. You've raised a good point, and I think I agree with you both in your conclusions and in your lack of conclusions.
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