Her language is a-rational (if not irrational), contra-logical (if not illogical), resistant to hierarchies and circular.
- Diane Price Herndl
Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you...
I write woman: woman must write woman.
- Helene Cixous
A woman’s text does not have to be rational. It is non-hierarchical and contra-logical. It is circular and multi-directional. An authentic woman’s writing is a text in and as a whole. It speaks with its body and is both a physical and mental experience[1].
In this respect, the selected articles by Cixous’ and Cisneros’, both women’s and Feminist texts, would not fare well summarized or interpreted. It however, may be understood when related.
Here then, is the experience of both texts related.
I will write because my wholeness must be heard. I will write with a disregard for the past. The past is his-tory; a cultural, manmade construct of the oppressive patriarchy (pp. 334[2]). I am too romantic, too clever for this construct[3]. Religion, marriage and other such structures of cultural materialism have failed me[4].
I will tell my story. Not as the witch, the bitch or the weak one relegated to the hearth, but as a multiverse of personality; rich, diverse and whole. I will not write “because of my father”[5]. I am one and whole, I do not lack. I am capable of anything. I will write with the procreative and nourishing white ink of my milk (pp.339). I have this creativity that is not controlled and cannot be bought by any imbecilic capitalist machinery[6] (pp. 335).
My story will reveal my true self. It does not repaint (pp. 335). I am not the dark, the mysterious nor the other (pp. 341). I am not ashamed; I will scream and shout. I can be aggressive if I want. I will not be silent. I am not that pretty thing whom, culture forbids, should be without propriety (pp. 336).
I am comfortable with who I am. I can be bold and brash; or soft and warm if I want to. I am lovely and lovable to myself and the ones around; people like me to be around. I make my own decisions and I will subvert with the tools of authority. I am amphibious, ambiguous; I will not be categorized[7].
I am your social mindfuck.
I speak with my body. My words war and struggle against the old for the new. It is the anti-logos of the new language. It challenges the old; the pervasive infatuation of the phallic social and material. It is the language to reclaim my body and give me my self as myself (pp. 338 - 339). My story shall reconstruct and reveal the body. It will no longer be the dissected object but the whole subject.
I am my text. I am the procreator, the nourishment and the healer. There will always be the mother in my text; the one to make everything all right. It will not cut you out; it wants to make you whole again (pp. 339). But it will freak you. It will put you in its mouth to be masticated and then give you milk and toast. It wants to reach out to the vast landscape of humanity to stroke and comfort[8].
My text does not speak of the words and language of the authority. It does not and will not perpetuate the falsehood of existing (male) texts. It does not pander to the familiar and comfortable ideologies (pp. 341). But my text will ridicule the existing ideologies with its own tools of authority. It will question existing structures and create awareness of the pseudo-egalitarian, repressive system with subversion. My text may see the boy as it he is deconstructed and objectified; into skin, into pale blue veins, into little cells[9].
My story is my body. It is not one of the individual roles as dictated by the patriarchs. I am not just the bitch or lady; the whore or virgin; the mistress or the mother; the monster or the Madonna. I am wholly all of them at once and more. I do not belong to any class and I cannot be categorized.[10] I am the Medusa and I am laughing. I am not the ugly monster relegated into the eerily dark and inexplicable labyrinth. I am the lovely and the beautiful who questioned authority, the woman whose body spoke against the voice of authority[11].
My story is the voice in flight. It steals away in the narrow passage ways and hidden crossovers. It emerges from the gaps and cracks (pp. 343). My story, my woman’s text is whole. It is not written in envy or in lack. It is a multiverse of personalities and they are all whole.
References:
Cisneros, S. (1992). Never Marry A Mexican.
In Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (68-83).
New York: Random House.
Cixous, H. (1991; original French, 1975). The Laugh of the Medusa.
In Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl (Eds.), Feminisms: An anthology of literary theory and criticism (334-349).
New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.
Herndl, D. P. (1991). Body.
In R. R. Warhol and D. P. Herndl (Eds.), Feminisms: An anthology of literary theory and criticism (331-333).
New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.
[1] As interpreted from Herndl’s article ‘Body’.
[2] Three-digit page references from this point on in paper refers to Cixous’ article; two-digit page references in footnotes refer to Cisneros’ short story.
[3] Romance as an archaic notion with its roots in masculine notions of chivalry. Clemencia is “too romantic” or too smart for it (pp. 69).
[4] Religion, marriage, etc as tools of a phallocentric authority; a social construct that has failed (pp. 69).
[5] The new woman, in the form of Clemenicia, no longer does things “because of [man]”, but makes decisions of her own for herself when she chose to “stop listening” (pp. 73).
[6] Capitalism and the social economy as part of the patriarchal construct – Cixous argues that the ‘antilogos’, that new woman’s language and its text should have nothing to do with it; unlike other previously published male texts.
[7] Throughout Cisneros’ text, Clemencia is obviously confident and comfortable with herself. She presents her self and people like her to be around (pp.71). She subverts authority by resisting classification and later when she objectifies the masculine characters in her life (pp. 77).
[8] Clemencia reveals that she is struggling between being the old woman and the new when she recounts her desire to belong to another man; to find value in her by being the “expensive jewel brilliant in the light of day” (pp. 68). Her multiverse role as a woman is revealed with her ability to “put [patriarchal world] in her mouth” (pp. 82) and “reach out to [humanity] and stroke” (pp. 83) and comfort. The latter reinforces Cixous’ argument that nuances of the mother are always inherent in all woman’s text.
[9] Cisneros objectifies the boy, a symbol of the immature patriarchy, through the female voice of Clemencia as a demonstration of subversion using the tools of authority.
[10] Clemencia straddles all the various roles of a woman in her stride. She is all of them at once. She takes on the various personalities (mistress, lover, mother, daughter, monster, etc) and fulfills each character as a whole, not in lack, need or envy. This mode of subversion resists the male view of relegating one female character to and with a single one-dimensional personality.
[11] In one version of the Medusa myth, either the Goddess Artemis (a huntress) or Athena (warrior; both female figures in masculine roles) destroyed the Gorgon’s beauty because they felt Medusa challenged them in terms of beauty and wisdom. In another, the Gorgon was made to suffer the torment of physical hideousness because Poseidon raped her in the deity’s temple. Out of rage, the furious deity transformed Medusa’s beautiful hair to serpents and she made her face terrible to behold. Both version of the myth demonstrates feminine roles as repressed by the obviously hypocritical patriarchal authority.
- Diane Price Herndl
Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you...
I write woman: woman must write woman.
- Helene Cixous
A woman’s text does not have to be rational. It is non-hierarchical and contra-logical. It is circular and multi-directional. An authentic woman’s writing is a text in and as a whole. It speaks with its body and is both a physical and mental experience[1].
In this respect, the selected articles by Cixous’ and Cisneros’, both women’s and Feminist texts, would not fare well summarized or interpreted. It however, may be understood when related.
Here then, is the experience of both texts related.
I will write because my wholeness must be heard. I will write with a disregard for the past. The past is his-tory; a cultural, manmade construct of the oppressive patriarchy (pp. 334[2]). I am too romantic, too clever for this construct[3]. Religion, marriage and other such structures of cultural materialism have failed me[4].
I will tell my story. Not as the witch, the bitch or the weak one relegated to the hearth, but as a multiverse of personality; rich, diverse and whole. I will not write “because of my father”[5]. I am one and whole, I do not lack. I am capable of anything. I will write with the procreative and nourishing white ink of my milk (pp.339). I have this creativity that is not controlled and cannot be bought by any imbecilic capitalist machinery[6] (pp. 335).
My story will reveal my true self. It does not repaint (pp. 335). I am not the dark, the mysterious nor the other (pp. 341). I am not ashamed; I will scream and shout. I can be aggressive if I want. I will not be silent. I am not that pretty thing whom, culture forbids, should be without propriety (pp. 336).
I am comfortable with who I am. I can be bold and brash; or soft and warm if I want to. I am lovely and lovable to myself and the ones around; people like me to be around. I make my own decisions and I will subvert with the tools of authority. I am amphibious, ambiguous; I will not be categorized[7].
I am your social mindfuck.
I speak with my body. My words war and struggle against the old for the new. It is the anti-logos of the new language. It challenges the old; the pervasive infatuation of the phallic social and material. It is the language to reclaim my body and give me my self as myself (pp. 338 - 339). My story shall reconstruct and reveal the body. It will no longer be the dissected object but the whole subject.
I am my text. I am the procreator, the nourishment and the healer. There will always be the mother in my text; the one to make everything all right. It will not cut you out; it wants to make you whole again (pp. 339). But it will freak you. It will put you in its mouth to be masticated and then give you milk and toast. It wants to reach out to the vast landscape of humanity to stroke and comfort[8].
My text does not speak of the words and language of the authority. It does not and will not perpetuate the falsehood of existing (male) texts. It does not pander to the familiar and comfortable ideologies (pp. 341). But my text will ridicule the existing ideologies with its own tools of authority. It will question existing structures and create awareness of the pseudo-egalitarian, repressive system with subversion. My text may see the boy as it he is deconstructed and objectified; into skin, into pale blue veins, into little cells[9].
My story is my body. It is not one of the individual roles as dictated by the patriarchs. I am not just the bitch or lady; the whore or virgin; the mistress or the mother; the monster or the Madonna. I am wholly all of them at once and more. I do not belong to any class and I cannot be categorized.[10] I am the Medusa and I am laughing. I am not the ugly monster relegated into the eerily dark and inexplicable labyrinth. I am the lovely and the beautiful who questioned authority, the woman whose body spoke against the voice of authority[11].
My story is the voice in flight. It steals away in the narrow passage ways and hidden crossovers. It emerges from the gaps and cracks (pp. 343). My story, my woman’s text is whole. It is not written in envy or in lack. It is a multiverse of personalities and they are all whole.
References:
Cisneros, S. (1992). Never Marry A Mexican.
In Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (68-83).
New York: Random House.
Cixous, H. (1991; original French, 1975). The Laugh of the Medusa.
In Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl (Eds.), Feminisms: An anthology of literary theory and criticism (334-349).
New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.
Herndl, D. P. (1991). Body.
In R. R. Warhol and D. P. Herndl (Eds.), Feminisms: An anthology of literary theory and criticism (331-333).
New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.
[1] As interpreted from Herndl’s article ‘Body’.
[2] Three-digit page references from this point on in paper refers to Cixous’ article; two-digit page references in footnotes refer to Cisneros’ short story.
[3] Romance as an archaic notion with its roots in masculine notions of chivalry. Clemencia is “too romantic” or too smart for it (pp. 69).
[4] Religion, marriage, etc as tools of a phallocentric authority; a social construct that has failed (pp. 69).
[5] The new woman, in the form of Clemenicia, no longer does things “because of [man]”, but makes decisions of her own for herself when she chose to “stop listening” (pp. 73).
[6] Capitalism and the social economy as part of the patriarchal construct – Cixous argues that the ‘antilogos’, that new woman’s language and its text should have nothing to do with it; unlike other previously published male texts.
[7] Throughout Cisneros’ text, Clemencia is obviously confident and comfortable with herself. She presents her self and people like her to be around (pp.71). She subverts authority by resisting classification and later when she objectifies the masculine characters in her life (pp. 77).
[8] Clemencia reveals that she is struggling between being the old woman and the new when she recounts her desire to belong to another man; to find value in her by being the “expensive jewel brilliant in the light of day” (pp. 68). Her multiverse role as a woman is revealed with her ability to “put [patriarchal world] in her mouth” (pp. 82) and “reach out to [humanity] and stroke” (pp. 83) and comfort. The latter reinforces Cixous’ argument that nuances of the mother are always inherent in all woman’s text.
[9] Cisneros objectifies the boy, a symbol of the immature patriarchy, through the female voice of Clemencia as a demonstration of subversion using the tools of authority.
[10] Clemencia straddles all the various roles of a woman in her stride. She is all of them at once. She takes on the various personalities (mistress, lover, mother, daughter, monster, etc) and fulfills each character as a whole, not in lack, need or envy. This mode of subversion resists the male view of relegating one female character to and with a single one-dimensional personality.
[11] In one version of the Medusa myth, either the Goddess Artemis (a huntress) or Athena (warrior; both female figures in masculine roles) destroyed the Gorgon’s beauty because they felt Medusa challenged them in terms of beauty and wisdom. In another, the Gorgon was made to suffer the torment of physical hideousness because Poseidon raped her in the deity’s temple. Out of rage, the furious deity transformed Medusa’s beautiful hair to serpents and she made her face terrible to behold. Both version of the myth demonstrates feminine roles as repressed by the obviously hypocritical patriarchal authority.
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