Feminist Literary Theory

Feminist Literary TheoryLecture 4.Assoc. Prof. Dr. Wisam MansourIntroductionThe literature available on this movement is insurmountable. It is a very daunting task to undertake a rough review of the movement and its basic theoretical assumptions. There are scores of names of leading feminist theorists that keep popping up in front of any reader who attempts to read through the literature available. To show the magnitude of the task, here is a sweeping list of few names that have contributed to the movement in various ways: Dale Spender, Dorothy Richardson, Elaine Showalter, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Helen Cixous, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Jane Gallop, Jane Marcus, Josette Feral, Judith Fetterley, Julia Kristeva, Juliet Mitchell, Kate Millett, Luce Irigaray, Marcia Holly, Marry Ellmann, Mary Jacobus, Michel Barrett, Monique Wittig, Nathalie Sarrault, Robin Lakoff, Sandra M. Gilbert, Shulamith Firestone, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Gubar, Susan Robin Suleiman, Toril Moi, Virginia Wolf, Xaviere Gauthier,Though belonging to the same movement, these intellectuals’ opinions and discourses are not by necessity compatible with each other’s. On the contrary, most of them held opposing positions to each other. As a hint about the diversity of the feminist movement, each of the women mentioned above entrenched herself behind an already existing theoretical position or more such as Bourgeois, Marxist, Freudian, Lacanian, Deconstructive, Structuralist, etc.It does not matter here; who among the feminists listed says what in opposition to whom. A short introduction of this caliber aims at reviewing the movement as a whole focusing attention on its basic tenets that will enable the student to produce a relatively well-informed criticism guided by these theoretical assumptions.As a matter of fact, I am wary about using the term theory to refer to the huge body of literature on feminism. I have been using the term movement instead, because, on the one hand, there is no single defined theory to talk about, as I hinted before; and on the other hand, some feminists contested that the rubric “theory” is masculine by nature, and should not be even associated with feminism. Quite a radical point; is not it?A Brief Historical Overview from Aristotle to the PresentAll through the so-called phallocentric, patriarchal history women have been made to believe that they are second to man. Long before the advent of Christianity, Aristotle asserts that women are imperfect creatures. In Greek mythology, phallocentric by default, evil, jealousy, irrational anger (the Furies), irrationality, and passion are all associated with the female. Power, might, reason and wisdom are associated with the male of the species. Remember names like Zeus, Apollo, Aries, Vulcan, etc. Even in the scope literature, women are not deemed good enough to be tragic heroines in the Aristotelian sense.The advent of Judo-Christian religions complicates things further for the female. Firstly, she is not god’s first choice in the story of the creation of the human rac e. She is made of one of Adam’s ribs as an accessory for him. Secondly, she finds herself suddenly responsible for man’s fall from heaven. Add to all this Saint Thomas Aquinas’s assertions that the woman is an imperfect man with a very negative and passive nature.So, all through this period, the culture that emerged has brain washed men and women into believing that women, in essence, are inferior to men. History tells us how women are always treated as commodities. Firstly, they are considered as mere wombs. This is to say, they are mere devices used to maintain the race. Secondly, in case of wars and tribal invasions, women are the first to capture. They are raped, killed, or kept as slaves and concubines. This is evident in world history anddocumented in the fictitious and factual narratives from Homer’s Odyssey through to the recent Balkan wars in the ex-republic of Yugoslavia.Building on all this dim history, generations of feminists incite women against this patriarchal order, or consciousness. They draw distinct lines among the main elements that go into the composition of a feminist being and identity. At the beginning, there is the FEMALE who is a biological product of nature or being. Next, appears the FEMININE, who is a combination of culturally and socially mediated person. And lastly, there is the FEMINIST, who is heavily grounded in ideology, determined at undermining male supremacy.To clarify this idea further, the term “female” refers to the biological construct found in nature. Thus, the female is a product of nature, the same way the man is. This product of nature is not left unmediated. The subsequent cultures that emerged and have been dominated by male-oriented societies have defined roles for the natural product to fit in. By adhering to these roles, the female becomes both female and “feminine.” Examples on such roles is that a woman should be beautiful, gentle, soft, weak, knows how to dance, sing, serve at home, please the husband, serve her parents, maintain a low profile in public, etc. Feminists, on the other hand, are those who fight hard to show that these cultural roles and qualities are not intrinsic to the actual natural product called “female, by exposing the falsity of the whole patriarchal history.According to some feminists, including Virginia Wolf, who paved the ground for the coming of the so-called French feminists, women were not able to write the way men did because they lacked the social, economic amenity men have. Thus, like many feminist writers, Wolf put the blame on the staggering social conditions women find themselves in.The Feminist MovementCategorically speaking, one can roughly place the movement in four basic categories:1. Bourgeois feminism of Virginia Wolf: Wolf asserts that women have not been able to write because of the prevalent social conditions that acted as a barrier between them and writing. Their financial dependence on man and the absence of independent financial stability prevent women from writing. She believes that if women are given the financial sources and freedom available to men, they will be as productive.2. Social feminism as advocated by Simone de Bouvoir: Bouvoir believes that social equality between the sexes would result in empowering women and enabling them to produce literature of their own. As a socialist feminist she attacks the traditional stereotyping of women in male narratives.3. French Feminism: This includes a group of feminists who believe that women writing should be radical in its nature. They should reinvent language and writing so that they depart drastically from the present masculine mode of expression. They entrenched behind a Lacanian scholarship. They argue that the present masculine discourses stem from the so-called “symbolic order” where men have to ma sk their real desires for fear of castration. Since the female has no symbolic organ to lose, she could write from the so-called “imaginary order.” By doing so, feminists can subvert all patriarchal logo4. American feminism: This movement includes another group of mainly women intellectuals who suspect the French feminist movement; and they, instead of reinventing the language, advocate a literary reading of textology against the grain of traditional male narratives, against the canon and the high culture.Practical tipsIf you want to read a text from a generalist feminist perspective, you need to1.Scan the text for:Traditional female stereotyping. See if the woman in the text you read is described as an angel, mad, temptress and witch, false and cheat, etc.General accusations about women.Try to find if the text accuses women of sentimentality, irrationality, conspiracy, passivity, etc.Abuses and derision. See if the text belittles women’s achievement, pokes fun on them and hurls abuses.Deliberate omission of women altogether from a narrative where they should be.2. Once you fall upon the requested stereotypes, generalizations or omissions inserted implicitly or explicitly in the narrative, you have next to read them against the grain of a masculine dominated culture that determines both reading and writing. This is to say, if you are a male reader, you should read against yourself and against your impulses. If you are a female reader, you should be able to see the male biases in the narrative so that you can expose their falsity.3. Look for the language used in the text. Observe whether the text uses traditional and conventional language patterns associated with the male order, or whether language is used unconventionally, and thus associated with the female order. Marks of unconventionality include loss or multiplicity of voices in a narrative, parody, fluidity of expression, bricolage, repetition, exaggeration, whimsy, multiple viewpoint and jouissances4. While reading bear in mind the two Lacanian orders: the symbolic and the imaginary. The symbolic implies the detachment of the narrative and the narrator from the mother’s body under the fear of symbolic castration by the patriarch. The imaginary order suggests a narrative or a narrator completely fused with the body of the mother, with no exhibition of any signs of fear from the patriarch.Applied Feminist Criticism: Case StudyNathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet LetterThe Scarlet letter, in short, is a narrative about Hester Pryn, a poor young married woman who leaves her oppressive homeland in Britain to settle in America. In her new home, separated from the husband she had to marry out of need and poverty, she encounters a charming young priest in a Puritan land. Ironically enough, she secretly falls in love with the priest, and gives birth to a lovely baby girl. The priest does not take any responsibility upon himself to protect her, or to confess to his sin. As a result she alone suffers humiliation, imprisonment and all sorts of hardships from the city authorities and her fellow citizens. This young woman resists all the pressures put on her: she refuses to disclose the identity of her lover; resists all temptations to go astray again; raises her child to the best of her capacity; absorbs and neutralizes the wrath and malice of her husband and immediate community. Through her dedicated struggle and hard work, she asserts her identity and regains her place in her community. Not only this, but also she exposes the hypocrisy and double standards of her society at large.Though this narrative seems on the surface to champion Hester in her struggle to reestablish her individuality and to prove her commitment to herself and her society; it fails drastically to exit out of the male-oriented vision of judgment. The narrative from the beginning till the end views the woman from a totally masculine oppressive tradition. Hester is depicted as a sinner, for nothing more than communicating her love. The harsh and severe punishment she receives reflects the injustice of a whole system that excludes female voices from effectively participating in determining their destinies. Even, the women in Hester’s community are made to see and judge her from a male perspective. This indoctrination of the female in fundamental societies is very clear in Hawthorne’s narrative. Hester, towards the end of the narrative, becomes slightly accepted by her community only when she shows them that she is capable of self-restraint and true Christian altruism. It is very sad and ironic that she redeems herself only when she insists on not revealing the identity of her lover, Reverend Dimmsdale.I am not after writing a full-length critique of the narrative as much as to show how the narrative can be viewed from a feminist position.Test1. Write an essay in which you explore the mode of writing Hawthorne adopts in The Scarlet Letter. Ground your discussion in the Lacanian twin symbolic and imaginary orders.2. Discuss Ibsen’s A Doll’s House from the various feminist perspectives referred to in this introduction. How would you classify Ibsen in terms of his championing feminism at large? What are the restrictions imposed on Nora, and what is the significance of her last move in the play?3. Write a short essay on the female characters, if we can call them characters, in Pinter’s The Birthday Party. You may write about female stereotyping, omission and loss of voice.。