Ecriture Feminine

‘Dictionaries are graveyards of language’ . Since dictionaries contain all the words of our present language it would be unfair to call a dictionary a graveyard. Language is ‘A human system of communication which uses structure vocal sounds and can be embodied in other media such as writing, print and physical signs. Most linguistics currently regard the faculty of language as a defining characteristic of being human.’

Écriture feminine is a mode or style of writing that took form in the late 60’s. It is not a pattern wholly advocated to women as the name might suggest but is a practice of writing that requires openness and multiplicity of a text, something that writers such as Cixous believe difficult to find amongst the work of male writers. Écriture feminine does not have a finite meaning. It allows itself open to various interpretations linking it to Intertextuality. Intertextuality states that the text is not an isolated object but rather a compilation of cultural textuality. ‘Texts have no unity or unified meaning on their own, they are thoroughly connected to an on going cultur

We can look at Sorties to mediate over the long running debate about Écriture feminine. In Sorties Cixous introduces us to a set of hierarchies of opposition that have been developed in our society. These hierarchies have created dualistic structures of unequal power to suit the needs of men and repress the needs of women. The entire theory of the hierarchies of opposition was a concept that I had never heard of before. Its mere definition may answer the reason why. It is linked to the patriarchal law that ensues involves prohibition and exclusion. Cixous views society, as one in which women submit to patriarchal law in order for men to have their existence.

Another way of looking at Écriture feminine would be to look at the work of Marie Cardinal. Her moving autobiography ‘Les mots pour le dire’ stresses the importance and the power of language. In this novel she uses psychoanalysis, or maybe psychoanalysis uses language and words to release Cardinal from a life of confusion, conflicting emotions and memories of her youth, that a middle class family in Algiers has imposed upon her. Through her psychoanalysis and a deep search into her inner self she rids herself of a terrible Thing that lives within her. Cardinal opens the words that act as laws against us and this allows her to be reborn.

Cixous impels us to write the body that is, write language. Language can be spoken or/and written involving chemical messages sent from our brain that is connected to all our other body organs. We breathe, move and operate as our body acts and as our hormones operate, all influencing the use of our language and how we write. Writing the body allows us to come into contact with the other inside us. In Sorties, Cixous questions the structures that man has developed. What if they were to be examined? Would our whole system survive a precise scrutiny? Men are not so strong because writing is a means of escaping but for Cixous it is something that we as humans are always an apprentice, we never actually master writing. This idea is incomprehensible to the men who strive to accomplish and master. In Le Livre de Promethea Cixous looks at writing the other. How writing in her life is a breath of freedom from the norm and does not st

Some topics in this essay:
Cixous Cardinal, Originally Jewish, Sorties Cixous, REPRESENTATION WOMEN, Promethea Cixous, Marie Cardinal, Intertextuality Intertextuality, Nature Cixous, Joyce Genet, Julia Kristeva, Écriture feminine, patriarchal law, cixous looks, hierarchies opposition, writers cixous, sorties cixous, taking control, writing means, cixous views, family algiers,