Feminist Literary Theory

The Second Sex Feminist Literary Theory

The Second Sex Feminist Literary Theory SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1908-1986) • The Second Sex • Questioned the “othering” of women by Western philosophy • Rediscovery of forgotten women’s literature • Revolutionary advocate of sexual politics • Questioning of underlying phallocentric, Western, rational ideologies • Championed pluralism: gender, sexual, cultural, ethnicity, postcolonial perspectives POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Gender As a Social Construct Feminist Literary Theory • Exorcise the male mind • Deconstructs logocentricism of male discourse • Sees gender as a cultural construct • Focus on unique problems of feminism: • History and themes of women literature • Female language • Psycho-dynamics of female creativity POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Feminizing Freud Feminist Literary Theory JULIA KRISTEVA (1941-) • Psychologist, linguist & novelist • Influenced by Barthes, Freud & Lacan • “Dismantles all ideologies,” including feminism • Disagrees with “patriarchal” views of Freud and Lacan • Pre-Oedipal maternal body source of semiotic aspect of language POSTSTRUCTURALISM

I Am Woman Feminist Literary Theory ABJECTION (to throw away; despicable) • Identity is constituted by excluding anything that threatens one's own (or one's group's) borders. • The maternal function is a threat to a woman’s identity. • In a patriarchial society, we are forced to accept out maternal bodies (cannot abject them). • Thus women develop depressive sexuality. • But no need to reject motherhood--just need a new discourse of maternity--and willingness to explore and accept multiple identities. POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Feminizing Freud Feminist Literary Theory • Maternal regulation is the law before the law. • Freud and Lacan maintain that the child enters the social by virtue of the paternal function, specifically paternal threats of castration. POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Feminizing Freud Feminist Literary Theory • Religion, specifically Catholicism (which makes the mother sacred), and science (which reduces the mother to nature) are the only discourses of maternity available to Western culture. POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Feminizing Freud Feminist Literary Theory • Maternal function cannot be reduced to mother, feminine, or woman. • Kristeva tries to counter-act stereotypesthat reduce maternity to nature. • Each one of us is what she calls a subject-in-process--in contrast with traditional notions of an autonomous unified (masculine) subject. Source: Kelly Oliver, Virginia Tech POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Madness, Holiness & Poetry Feminist Literary Theory • Masculine symbolic order represses feminine semiotic order • Semiotic open to men and women writers • Semiotic is “creative”--marginal discourse of the avant garde • Raw material of signification from pre-Oedipal drives (linked to mother) • Realm of the subversive forces of madness, holiness and poetry • Creative, unrepressed energy POSTSTRUCTURALISM

I Am Woman Feminist Literary Theory • Challenges Judeo-Christian icons of woman. • Balancing act: live within Lacan’s symbolic order of patriarchal laws without losing uniqueness. • Women can produce own symbols and language. • Multiplicity of female expression • “To break the code, to shatter language, to find specific discourse closer to the body and emotions, to the unnamable repressed by the social contract.” --Kristeva POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Binary Equals Feminist Literary Theory as • ALICE JARDINE, Gynesis(1982) • Woman as a binary opposition • Man/woman • Rational/irrational • Good/evil • Implied male logocentricism • The concept of jouissance POSTSTRUCTURALISM

The Joy of Jouissance Helene Cixcous as • Critic, novelist, playwright • Picks up where Lacan leaves off • Denounces patriarchal binary oppositions • Women enter into the Symbolic Order differently • Deconstructs patriarchal Greek myths • Femininity (jouissance) unrepresentable in phallocentric scheme of things • Favors a “bisexual” view POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Deconstructing Sigmund Helene Cixcous as • Women are closer to the Imaginary • Women more fluid, less fixed • The individual woman must write herself • Feminine literature: not objective; erase differences between order and chaos, text and speech; inherently deconstructive • Admires Joyce and Poe • Men can produce feminist literature POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Queer Ideas Queer Theory as • Gender and sexuality not “essential” to identity • Socially constructed • Mutable and changeable • Self shaped by language, signs and signifiers. • Self becomes a subject in language, with more multiplicity of meaning. • Western ideas of sexual identity come from science, religion, economics and politics and were constructed as binary oppositions POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Deconstructing Sex Queer Theory as • Queer theory deconstructs all binary oppositions about human sexuality. • Encourages the examination of the world from an alternative view. • Allows for the inclusion of gender, sexuality, race and other areas of identity by noticing the distinctions between identities, communities, and cultures. • Challenges heterosexism and homophobia, in addition to racism, misogyny and other oppressive discourses while celebrating diversity. POSTSTRUCTURALISM

The Myth of the Orient Postcolonialism as • Attempts to resurrect colonized cultures • Deconstruct Western view of third-world nations as “otherness” • Edward Said: “Orientalism” was an artificial word constructed by the West to talk about and the East (Typical binary opposition) • Empire-building nations used literature as power • Ingrained Western myths & phallic logocentricism in colonized people POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Different Ways to “Read” a Film/Novel • Archetypal • Freudian / Lacanian • Ideological • Deconstructionist • Feminist • Queer • Post-colonial

Catherine in Jules & Jim • Identity defined in relation to men • Rebels against identity society has constructed for her • Abjects maternal & wife roles • Repressed desires • Multiple personalities • Celebrates jouissance • “Poetry, madness & holiness” • A violent feminist

Feminist Literary Theory